


Belief

by notenuffcaffeine



Series: The Parent Pack [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Chris Argent, BAMF Derek, BAMF Stiles, BAMF Talia, BAMF parents, Because Talia Hale is Awesome, F/M, Hunters are bad, Hurt Stiles, I Don't Even Know, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Kyle McCall is a pain in the ass, M/M, OMG Alllll the Ships, POV Alternating, POV Chris Argent, POV Derek Hale, POV Melissa McCall, POV Scott McCall, POV Sheriff Stilinski, POV Stiles, POV Talia Hale, Pack Family, Pack Feels, Pack is important, Sheriff Stilinski Knows, Shut up Stiles!, Stilinski Family Feels, The First Rule Of Fight Club, Wolf Derek, i wrote a whole fic just to include a puppy pile, parent pack, post-season 3a - AU, stiles and derek are trouble magnets, twins are useful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 48,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenuffcaffeine/pseuds/notenuffcaffeine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Remember when you came out here looking for dead bodies?” added Derek.  </p>
<p>“Those times were slightly different than this time, when I’m basically asking to become a dead body,” replied Stiles.</p>
<p>“No, you’re asking to set up a meeting between the alpha of the territory and the hunters stupid enough to be in her territory,” said Derek.  “You’re the messenger.  People don’t shoot messengers.”</p>
<p>Because that was the stupidest thing that had ever crossed Derek Hale’s lips, a shot rang out through the preserve.  Because this was Stiles’ life and it never wanted to just go smoothly.  He couldn’t just take a walk in the woods and expect that was all that would happen, walking and woodsing.  Never that simple.  Instead he was suddenly grabbed by the arm and dragged along as Derek and Scott took off running.</p>
<p>... or ...</p>
<p>The Hale family guide to Dealing with Hunters When You're Dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Annnnnd it's back!! 
> 
> This is going to be another long one, folks. Grab some hot cocoa and settle in!

*o*o*o*

The old Hale house hadn’t looked so old the last time the wolf had wandered past it.  It had been open, collected light and warmth and invited family and friends.  It had been a home that smelled of people and food and the kitchen herb garden.  And books.  So many books.  

The years-old memory faded slightly seeing what the home had actually become.  It still stood, four walls and a roof, but everything was damaged and gray, weathered.  It sucked in light like a black hole, ominous instead of safe.  The house was broken beyond repair.  It smelled of death and sickness and blood.  No one would ever live in it again.

The wolf stopped at the steps, resolve to go inside lost.  There was no one there to find, even though dozens of recent scents said the place was still visited.  Probably looters or the homeless, teenagers poking into the haunted shell.  The house was a waste of time.  The black wolf turned away from it and bounded for the city in long strides.  There was life somewhere.  She knew the house had left survivors now.  She had friends who could help.  She just had to find them.

 

*o*o*o*

 

The McCall breakfast table was an unusually crowded space.  Kyle McCall broke from his usual pattern and stayed to eat what Melissa cooked for everyone else.  Apparently he didn't think two packs of teenagers were enough mouths to feed.  Stilinski stayed out of Kyle's way, figuring he was pushing his luck enough just for having slept on the couch under the same roof.  He sipped at his coffee and watched as werewolves appeared from their various corners of the house to sniff out the food.  Cora and Derek had stayed the night, camped out in Scott's room with Stiles and Isaac.  The twins had shown up, too.  

Melissa grudgingly allowed the wolves, but she drew the line as the numbers had grown and sent Allison, Lydia and Danny home.  Stiles had slept from 9am the previous day to nearly 9pm, and then fallen asleep again by midnight.  The kid was drained.  Derek told Stilinski and Melissa that having the pack around would help Stiles heal faster, though it wasn't clear just where the pack lines were drawn with so many people in the puppy piles.  

It was clear that Derek didn't let Stiles out of his sight, though.  Standing in the kitchen, watching the buffet line for food, Stilinski counted off Scott, Isaac, Cora, Ethan, and Aiden, but no Stiles and no Derek.  Scott looked tired, but his brow was scrunched up and he kept looking back toward the stairs.  

"It's alright," Cora said to Scott as they sat down at the table.  "It doesn't mean what you're worried it means."

Scott huffed, not amused.  Stilinski looked from the kids at the table to where Kyle stood hovering around Melissa as she divvied out breakfast for the two missing upstairs.  Cora was obviously continuing a conversation Kyle didn't need to be present for and Stilinski coughed behind his coffee mug.  Cora looked from the sheriff to the fed and then tucked into her food.

Stiles and Derek - the full-grown adult, two-legged version - thumped down the stairs a little later.  Stiles still sported the shiner and cuts over his forehead, and a bruise was barely discernible at his left ear from the fight, but considering the blender he had survived he didn't look too bad.  He moved stiff from the body blows though and Stilinski was still very aware of the rainbow of colors across his son's chest under the ridiculous t-shirt in support of single moms. The cuts and bruises all over Stiles' arms were hidden by another layer. But at least the kid was alive, awake, and moving.

"G'mornin'," Stilinski greeted.  Stiles offered a blurry-eyed smile and then stole his father's coffee mug from his hands.  Melissa smirked and passed a fresh mug to Derek to hand over as a replacement.

"Guess any question about how he's doing will wait ten minutes," Stilinski said, amused.  Stiles nodded and held up a hand, five fingers splayed.  "Okay, five works," said his father.

Stiles crashed into a chair between Scott and Ethan and gulped at his coffee.  

"Stop staring at me," he mumbled.  Ethan smirked, put his fork down, and set his chin on a hand to aim his gaze more fixedly.  Stiles' eyes narrowed suspiciously and he inched his chair closer to Scott.

"So you're getting breakfast and then going to the hospital for X-rays, right?" Scott asked.  Stiles pulled another face and then inched his chair over toward Ethan again.

"Nope."

"Yep," cut in Stilinski.  "I was planning on calling out this morning to get him over there."

"Nope.  Nope-nope-nope.  Go to work.  Have fun.  Can't miss your first day back and all," said Stiles.

"Nobody will mind if I take care of my kid," said the sheriff.  He cast a pointed look to Kyle, who nodded and shrugged.  

"No," said Stiles. He very carefully enunciated each letter.

"Stiles, yes. You need to-"

"Don't worry about it, Koz.  I'll get him in," said Melissa as she passed another batch of scrambled egg to a plate for Stiles.  The scrape of the pan against the burner sounded suddenly loud as Melissa clapped a hand over her mouth.  A pin dropping in the room would have been excruciating just then.   Stilinski looked from Melissa to Stiles, ignoring the confused looks on the faces of the teenagers in the room.

"Koz?" echoed Scott.  

"What's a Koz?" added Cora.

"Casey," corrected Melissa, gesturing toward the sheriff as an explanation.  The sheriff who was currently locked in a glaring match with his son.  The coffee mugs had been put down and Stiles had shoved back from the table and the press of werewolves.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Stiles demanded, a touch of his usual animation back.  "My best friend's _MOM_?"

"She learned that one from your mom, years ago," Stilinski said quickly.  "Not me."

"I thought the sheriff's campaign posters said Casey?" said Scott.  The kid was on a completely different wavelength than his best friend and Stilinski was so unbelievably grateful.

"Totally not my point," grumbled Stiles.

"We can figure this out later..." said Stilinski, far too aware of Kyle McCall's presence in the room.

"Nuh uh.  No way," said Stiles. "We are apparently too late for that, bub."

"Stiles-"

"When do they move in?" Stiles carried on.  Melissa ducked her forehead into a palm.  Stilinski felt exactly what his kid was aiming to inflict: all the red-faced guilt of a randy teenager.  Stiles kept talking and Stilinski wanted to rewind time a week.

"Because that is the most common result, you realize?  Unplanned addition of children.  Cramped living space.  It's like a genie bottle.  And me and Scott and Isaac are totally not sharing a room.  We're too old to face the consequences of your actions."

By that time, Derek had caught on and stood behind Stiles, one hand clapped over the teenager's mouth to shut him up.  Stilinski would have thought of that first if he hadn't been ambushed.  He stood away from the counter he had leaned on and collected his coffee mug from it.

"Second thought, I think I'll go to work today after all," he said.  "He's obviously feeling fine."  Melissa nodded quickly.  Kyle narrowed his eyes, looking from one to the other.

Scott finally caught on.  "Wait... What?"

Stilinski paused by the sink, close to Melissa to look over at her.  Well, the cat was out of the bag.  In a room full of werewolves.  He raised a questioning eyebrow.  Melissa smirked.  She leaned closer, he stepped in to meet her for the comfortable parting kiss they normally snuck like teenagers.  Aiden hooted like the spectator he was and Isaac shrugged.

"Eh.  I've seen better.  We'll go with an _8_ for special circumstance," he commented dryly.  Stiles and Scott stared, bug-eyed, while Cora snickered.

"Mom?" blurted Scott.  Stilinski ducked away, not even looking at Kyle as he headed for the door.

"See you at the station, Kyle," he called over his shoulder.  Oh, _shit_ , was he going to regret waking up on the couch this morning.

 

*o*o*o*


	2. Chapter 2

The unfortunate necessity of stealing clothes from time to time came with the territory.  It wasn’t possible to walk around in the nude as a human, too complicated and problematic.  That privilege was reserved for wolves; it was the trade-off for the lack of communication between species.  Thankfully, few people argued when a 120 pound wolf decided to steal from their clothesline.  The borrowed sun-dress was a size or two too big, she was no longer as healthy as she once was, but it worked for her needs.  The barefoot thief padded down the street and across the nearly empty parking lot.

It had been six years since Talia Hale had stepped foot in her emissary’s veterinary clinic and she had been relieved to see his name still on the door.  She remembered the energy of the place, felt the ash that lined the entrance to the back where Alan spent his time.  He still worked alone.

Looking around the familiar, unchanged space, Talia didn’t trust her voice.  What if she was wrong?  What could have happened to her old friend in the intervening years?  Would he even offer her help?    Talia had heard Derek that night, knew her son was still alive.  It had been days, too long to travel on four legs, but she knew she could still get him back.  She had to try.  She had been complacent too long.  But at the moment, she couldn’t get her mouth to work, couldn’t raise a sound.  Too rusty, she thought with a small smile.  So she rang the bell on the counter.

 

*o*o*o*

 

Scott wasn't sure why he had agreed to play taxi for Stiles.  Other than to get away from his father pressuring his mother about her dating life and the dangers of _using it_ to interfere with Kyle's work.  He hadn't been a fan of that conversation any more than Stiles had, for so many reasons.  They needed out of the house; Melissa had two packs of werewolves to protect her even though she shut Kyle down alright on her own.  It was a conversation that pointed right at Stiles being pressured into making a report about Nevada. Which he said he didn't want to do because there was no way anyone would believe him,  because there wasn’t.  

But Stiles was still hurt, he smelled wrong, and he was being harder-headed than usual.  Scott was beginning to doubt his choices.

"I still think you should go to the hospital," he said.

Stiles rolled his eyes.  " _You_ don't anymore unless we have to _break-in_ to something.  Deaton works."

Scott let out a quick laugh, not at all amused.  There were very big, very glaring differences between his situation and Stiles' and Stiles was as much of an expert on those differences as Scott.  "Dude. One, he's my _boss_ , not my doctor. -"

"I would like to see your mom explain you to her staff, man," Stiles cut in, grinning.  " _Oh, no, the insta-grow sideburns are inherited. From his father's Aunt Ernie._ "

Scott ignored him.  "Two! Not a werewolf! No insta-grow _anything_."

"So?" asked Stiles.  He shrugged.  Scott stared at him, almost forgetting to watch the road he was driving on.

"Not Deaton's division," he said.

Now that Scott had come to the conclusion Stiles had apparently been waiting for, Stiles nodded patiently.  "Then I won't ask him to explain why I hurt - since I am 500% positive _I already know the answer to that anyway_ \- and I'll ask him about _werewolf stuff_."

Scott glared at his best friend.  "You are infuriating."

Stiles smirked.  "Shut up.  You know you love me."

The glare turned out the windshield and Scott was quiet a moment.  "...yeah.  About that, what's your dad's name?" he asked.

It was slightly vindicating to see Stiles' smug grin disappear.  "Kazimierz.  It means _Dead As A Doornail_ in Polish," said Stiles soberly.

Scott huffed at that, shaking his head.  "Right."

At the clinic, Scott pointed to the cars cluttering the lot.  There were all of two, including Deaton's car, but it still meant they were last in line to talk to the vet.

"Look! Deaton's busy.  I guess we go to the hospital..."

Stiles rolled his eyes at the roof and pointed Scott to park the car in an open spot.  "Oh my god.   _No_ , okay.  I wanna talk to _Deaton_."

"We seriously have to go sit in a waiting room that's not a hospital?" asked Scott.  Still, he obliged and parked it.  Stiles clapped him on the shoulder before reaching for the door.

"No, you're here.  We just go in.  Wait in the office.  Duh."

Getting out of the car, Scott shook his head.  "I'm the one who works here.  I can wait in the office.  You stay out in the lobby."

He didn't budge even when Stiles gave him the shocked-and-betrayed face.  Stiles sighed and tossed his hands in the air,  exasperated.   "I can't believe we're still friends.  Nothing but abuse."

Scott held the door open as a peace offering and ushered Stiles into the clinic.  "Hey, I am the only thing standing between you and certain death on a regular basis. It's not my fault you never listen to me."

"Ha!"

 

*o*o*o*


	3. Chapter 3

The morning at the sheriff’s station had gone well enough for about an hour.  It was a first-day-back without the chaos, strangely enough.  Stilinski had his office all to himself and he happily spent it reclaiming his desk.  No, he didn’t ask permission to move Kyle’s things, but they were on _his_ desk.  Stilinski was getting territorial in his old age, he figured.  Kyle could just deal with it from the unused secretary’s desk where Stiles sometimes was forced to do homework.

The door was open and deputies would filter in to welcome the sheriff back.  Some complained about the stench of dead fish in his office and Stilinski just smiled and agreed that their guest had overstayed his welcome.  But in light of the morning at home, he smugly chose not to push his luck.  He was back and the morning was call-free which meant life still went on rather peacefully in Beacon Hills.  His kid was safe and would (probably) still be speaking to him when he picked him up after work.  Melissa texted him a warning that Kyle was riled, but she handled it, so everything was fine in that corner too.  After the past few days, Stilinski sat behind the desk and took a chance to just enjoy the peace.  It was a nice welcome back to doing what he did.  Normal, with the shades of the _weird_ just out there on the edges where they weren’t so noticeably _not_ normal anymore.

Then the call came over the radio.  A deputy had been roped into a perp transport and reported they were inbound to the station.

_From_ Melissa McCall’s home address.

So much for peace.  He texted Melissa back.

_Are you sure you handled it?_ he asked.

_I handled it just fine_.  Melissa replied.

_Why did someone just leave your house in a squad car?_ came the sheriff’s follow-up.

Melissa’s reply took a little longer that time.   _Derek didn’t handle things as well I did._

Stilinski rested his head in his hands and leaned against his desk.  A moment later, his cell phone chimed again.  Melissa’s report confused Stilinski for a moment before he was left wanting to pound his head through a wall.  

_For the immediate future: Do NOT even jokingly threaten your son around that man._  she advised.

Yep.  Normal with a few shades of weird.  That was his life now.

 

*o*o*

 

It turned out Scott wasn't kidding about the threat to make Stiles sit in the lobby.  He went to the back to check the exam rooms to catch Deaton and left Stiles to himself.   In the waiting room.  Where everything smelled like wet dog.  Stiles sprawled in a chair and tried to get comfortable.

The front door to the clinic opened and Stiles pulled his head up from the wall so fast his precariously balanced chair thunked back against it.  He was expecting somebody with a cat or dog or parrot or something likewise small and fluffy in distress.  He was not expecting the cleaned-up, Hunter-version of the Evil Hippie he had met in the woods.  

Hutch stood in front of the door a few paces, effectively blocking Stiles' planned escape route to Deaton's office.  He couldn't even call for help on this one without putting Scott right in Hutch's path.  If he didn't play it right, he was pretty sure his mother-hen/best-friend/maybe-someday-real-brother would come running anyway.

"What, you're stalking me now?" Stiles asked.  He was calm, just not actually sarcastic for once.

"No, as it happens," said Hutch.  "Not even very surprised.  You were with a Hale.  And now, here you are."

"Well, yeah.  According to that _text message_ you got, this particular teenager _lives_ in Beacon Hills," said Stiles.  He chewed at a fingernail and kept his butt planted in the office chair.  Maybe if he stalled long enough, Deaton would show up and chase the stranger off.  "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Really?" asked Hutch.  "You can't guess?"

"Uh. No? I kinda had my heart set on never seeing you people again,” said Stiles, drawing it out.  “The exact _opposite_ of having a clue, really."

"Your stunt at the lake.  You cost me a wolf."

Stiles let out a derisive scoff.  "Mark _sold_ his wolf, _I_ was locked up.  Take it up with your buddy over there.  Far, far away from me."

Hutch rolled his eyes, somehow completely comfortable with the subject matter in the middle of the clinic lobby.  Arrogant-asshole hunters.  "Come on, Stiles.  I know where you live."

"Can we _not_ do the threatening-my-life thing in public?” asked Stiles.  He waved toward the empty lobby in general.  “I'm just here to talk to the vet."

"Where did you put my wolf?" asked Hutch.  "Is she here? That it?"

Hutch took a step toward the exam rooms behind the counter and Stiles' battle for calm took a big casualty-hit.  He stood up and took a few threatening steps of his own, cell phone in hand.

"I don't have your goddamn wolf. I have my finger on the call button and the _entire_ sheriff's department just waiting for a chance at you," he said quietly.  "So you wanna call it a truce and get the hell out of my town?  Or you wanna see how fast the Feds get involved?"

"Is there a problem?" Deaton's voice had never been so welcomed.  Stiles looked expectantly to Hutch.

"He lost a wolf," said Stiles, very clearly addressing Deaton without breaking the staring contest. "Tell him it's not here so he'll go away. _Please_."

Deaton looked tolerantly at Hutch, like there was no problem in the world with a man looking for a wolf in the vet clinic.  "I don't have any wolves for patients.  If you leave a card, I can call you if one is brought in."

"Are you sure?" asked Hutch.  "You know this one.  Big and black.  Rare."

"Sounds like it would stick out in the mind, but no, I don't know it." Deaton waved Stiles toward the office but kept his attention on Hutch. "Like I said, leave a card if you wish.  This young man made an appointment and I still have a busy day ahead of me."

Go figure, Hutch didn't leave a card.  "I'll try back later."

As he watched Hutch turn and leave the clinic, Stiles stood beside Deaton, so angry his hands shook in his pockets.  When the man was gone, he felt the vet's gaze shift to him but Stiles was still too hyped.  He wanted to go find Derek and he wanted to go find the knife from Chris and he wanted to _fight_.

"Stiles," said Deaton, interrupting his rage-rush just enough for reality to claw back in.  "I think you should go sit down in my office."

Stiles shook his head and glared at the front door another heartbeat.  "I'm fine.  Don't tell Scott."

Deaton put a hand on Stiles' shoulder to turn him physically away from the door.  "I don't have to.  Who do you think sent me out here?"

Wincing, Stiles stood where he had been put.  He pointed briefly toward the door.  "Look, that guy... Just.  Yeah.  Don't let him around anybody."

"Noted."  Deaton was quiet a moment, waiting Stiles out.  "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

It took a minute for Stiles to even remember why he had been sitting in the office at all.  When he did, he could have kicked himself.

"Alphas," he blurted.  "How do they work?"

Deaton sighed, pointed back toward his office.  "A conversation for somewhere less public, then.  I have patients and their people in the exam rooms."

"No, just... Can they just switch on and off?  What makes them alphas?"

Deaton frowned at the simplification of it.  "There's no _one_ thing."

"Yes there is," Stiles insisted mildly.  "Peter, the alpha pack... They killed and became alpha."

The vet shook his head.  His expression showed disappointment but Stiles was still too hyped to let it bother him.  He was there to ask his questions, so if Deaton thought he was an idiot, he would just have to set it right by answering them.

"That's power.   _Theft_.  That is not the same thing," said Deaton. "They present the same, maybe.  But revenge is revenge.  It poisons everything."

"So? What is it then?"

"What good is a leader with no one behind him?" asked Deaton.  "In the wild, wolves organize in groups.  For safety, for community.  They're social.  In large packs, there's often more than one alpha to pick up the slack, a mated pair, usually.  But if another member of the pack gets restless, if the alpha is weakened and easy prey?  The alpha loses status when they lose a fight.  After so many losses, the social group finds a stronger leader."

Stiles nodded.  He had found that much out months earlier on a wiki-hunt.  It didn't help him make sense of Derek Hale's one-man _Red vs. Blue_ show.  "Can they get it back?"

"The power of an alpha comes from the _pack_ , Stiles.  There's nothing to give back.  It's belief, that they are safe, that they're capable as a unit.  The alpha is just the _keeper_ of that belief.  It's a responsibility, not a prize."

"So the power of the alpha depends on the unity of the pack?" asked Stiles, considering.  Deaton nodded.

"What the pack puts into supporting their alpha, they'll get back from them twenty times if not more,"  Deaton said.  It reminded Stiles of what Cora had said about pack, that losing pack mates was more like losing a part of themselves than even losing family.

"So Scott's strong because we all know he'll get it done," said Stiles, thinking out loud.  "And Derek went down because, well, he _didn't_.  He chased everyone off."

"It's possible," agreed Deaton.  

"Derek's an alpha again," said Stiles. "I saw it.  Saw it switch over.  So he has a pack behind him."

Deaton raised an eyebrow, gradually nodded.  

Stiles frowned.  "Yeah, but who? Cora's been helping Scott, and Peter's... Peter."

Deaton shrugged.  "That's a pack thing.  Like I said, it's not a science."

"More like a democracy."

Deaton waved a hand in a side to side wobble to correct another oversimplification.  "Instinct can't be ignored as a factor here, but yes. The pack has to give them the power and strength they assume."

Stiles turned it all over in his head, still puzzled by the blue eyes from a few days earlier.  Then Hutch forced himself back to the front of his thoughts.  The anger threatened to come back.

"Thanks," he said to the former emissary.  Then Stiles looked back toward the hidden rooms of the office.  "Dude.  Let's go."

Scott appeared.  "Hospital now?"

"Nope.  Your dad."

Scott stopped short and crossed his arms.  "Dude.  Drive yourself."

Not at all intimidated by Scott's scowl, Stiles reached out and caught his friend by the shirt-front to drag him toward the door.

*0*0*0*


	4. Chapter 4

Scott wasn't wild about going to talk to his dad, even if he understood why.  It felt like everything was on a knife's edge and he didn't trust that his dad would handle it without knocking it all off balance.  But if he couldn't talk Stiles into seeing a doctor, at least they could do something about the hunters from Nevada.

Scott's hope for that crumbled when they walked into the sheriff's station.  He caught Stiles by the jacket to hold him back because the first thing either of them saw was the sheriff and Scott's father inches away from a brawl.  Not far from the brewing incident stood Derek, in handcuffs, looking annoyed but far too accustomed to standing in handcuffs in the sheriff's station.

"What the hell!" Stiles was at his boiling point and Scott had to catch him around both shoulders to haul him back.

"Stiles! Come on, just wait..." Scott was surprised when Stiles still tried to shrug free.  His friend wasn't interested in reason: he was looking for a fight.  The sheriff backed off from Kyle but it wasn't until Derek stepped away from the counter that Stiles stopped pulling at Scott.

"Stiles! Knock it off!" The order from Derek got through and Stiles slumped back against Scott.  He was still seething and Scott could still hear the pained wheeze to his friend's breathing, but Stiles stood down.

"What's he here for?" Scott asked, jerking his chin toward Derek. He didn't dare let Stiles go yet.

"Kidnapping.  Assault.  Obstruction." Kyle shrugged.  The last was added with a glare toward the sheriff.  The whole thing was a challenge and Scott struggled to keep from hurting Stiles as his friend tried again to get at his federal ass of a father.

"Stiles! Stop!" Another order from Derek and again Stiles settled down.  Scott scowled and moved to corner Stiles into one of the chairs against the wall.  

"What are you two even doing here?" Derek asked.

"I came to file a freaking report!" Stiles glared at Kyle.  The fed looked surprised for a moment before his expression turned smug.  The sheriff looked concerned.

"You sure?" he asked.  Stiles nodded.  Scott hesitated.

"One of them showed up at Deaton's when we were there," he said.  "He hassled Stiles and-"

"Just let me make the report so somebody can arrest the asshole while he's in town," cut in Stiles.

"Can I go now?" asked Derek.  Scott liked the idea; he wanted to kick Derek's ass suddenly and couldn't do it in the sheriff's station.  But he also wanted to help Derek hunt down the hunter who had spooked Stiles so badly.

"Report first," Kyle said to Derek, dashing Scott's plans.  "Unless you plan to suddenly start cooperating, I'll talk to you later."

Derek just glared at the wall.  So much for cooperating.  Kyle shrugged.  "Sheriff Stilinski?  Can you put Mr. Hale in holding while I get the statement?  Or are you not done telling me how to do my job."

The sheriff looked for a moment like he was going to deck a federal agent across the face - _everyone_ in the room wanted to -  but instead he moved to collect Derek.  Stiles watched his dad like a hawk and the sheriff noticed.

"Behave," he told his son.  He even added in the finger-shake.  Stiles just nodded.  He stood up to follow Kyle in to make the report.  Scott looked between the two pairs, trying to make up his mind.  He figured then his best shot at Derek was with the sheriff around and boldly followed them back to the holding cells.  Stilinski didn't seem to mind at all.

As soon as the three of them were closed in the room with the little barred cells and the drunk tank, Scott grabbed Derek's arm and shoved him away from the sheriff.

"Hey!  What-" The sheriff backed off when he saw Scott's face.  His hand went to his service weapon at his hip.  "Scott... Back off..."

"In a minute," replied Scott.  Derek was just as confused as the sheriff but even handcuffed he was far less worried.  Scott shoved Derek into the wall.

"Did you give Stiles the bite?" Scott growled at Derek.  The sheriff looked to Derek then, suddenly on Scott's side.   _Now_ Derek looked worried.

"What? No! Stiles is fine..." He said.

"No he's not!" returned Scott.  "He went to Deaton instead of a doctor.  And the stuff this morning, then just now.  Stiles doesn't take orders from anybody!  Now he's hurt and you're the only one he listens to."

"I couldn't, Scott.  I offered it, but it was only if we had to, and we didn't." Derek stayed calm, apparently sincere.

"What about the marks on his neck?"

"He ran from a wolf! He’s lucky he’s even _alive_ ," returned Derek.  "I wasn't there. But they weren't deep enough to turn him.  He'd be sick by now, remember?"

"Then what's going on with him?" pressed Scott.

Derek set his jaw and stared back at him.  "I. Don't. Know."

The staring contest continued until the sheriff put a hand on Scott's shoulder to tug him back.

"Son, settle down," he said quietly.  "Stiles' had a hard few days.  He's going to be off for awhile."

"And Agent McCall in there isn't helping," said Derek. "You should be in with them, keeping him off Stiles' case."

"I had to prioritize," returned Scott.

"Fine," interrupted the sheriff.  "Priority settled.   _Now_ you and I can go sit-in with them."

Scott looked over at the sheriff, then nodded acceptance of the idea.  He backed off a step to turn toward the door.

"Did Stiles tell you who it was?" Derek asked.  Scott hesitated.

"Hutch went in to Deaton's looking for a wolf.  He said Stiles stole it," said Scott.  He didn't feel any better when he saw the color drain from Derek's face.  Even the sheriff looked ill.

"I'm gonna go sit with Stiles now," Scott said.  Derek nodded.  He moved away from the wall Scott had pinned him to and into the empty jail cell.  He even closed himself in and looked to the sheriff.

"One of us stays with Stiles until Hutch is out of town," said the sheriff, easily interpreting the message.  He checked the gate briefly before escorting Scott from the room.

 

*o*o*

 

Derek wasn’t in lock-up as long as he expected to be.  It was about a half an hour before Kyle McCall showed up, alone.

“Still not pressing charges?” asked the agent.  

“There’s no point,” Derek replied.  “Nothing will get done.  I don’t need a target on my back.”

Kyle shook his head.  “So you’re going to let the kid carry it on his own.”

Derek didn’t see why he needed to respond to that.  Kyle had already provoked him once this morning.  He was wiser now.  Kyle sighed.

“Will you at least confirm the kid’s story?” asked the agent.  “You’re the only witness he’s got.”

“Will it get people prosecuted or just arrested?” replied Derek.

“I’m aiming for a case that’ll hold up in court, yeah,” said Kyle.  “Which is damn difficult when everybody in this backwoods town thinks courtrooms are mythical places that don’t actually exist.”

Derek had to grin at that; Kyle had no idea what kind of mythological things people did believe around Beacon Hills.  “Fine.  What am I supposed to say?” he asked.

Kyle didn’t like the way he phrased it but Derek didn’t care.  “Tell me about this Hutch guy.”

“What did Stiles tell you?” asked Derek.

“Not how this works,” said Kyle.

“It is on this or I’ll just sit here until your 24 hours are up,” said Derek.  “I’ll back him up, but I’m not making a report.”

A very exasperated Kyle phrased the rest of his questions to be yes or no answers, which Derek helpfully obliged.  He was surprised when the agent threw in a few questions that were so far off the script it was clear he was trying to trip up the witness.  It was obvious that Kyle would love to hang _something_ around Derek’s neck but it wasn’t going to be his own kidnapping.  And at the end of it, Kyle let him out.  There was no sign he had enough to go on to arrest Hutch, but he at least seemed to believe Stiles was telling the truth.  Kyle escorted him out to where Scott waited while Stiles sat in his dad’s office with the station’s sketch artist.  

As soon as the agent turned his back, Derek and Scott snuck back to the office.  Stiles slumped in one of the chairs, exhausted but not giving up as someone moved pencil lines around on a page in the general depiction of the only problematic hunter they knew to be in town.  Scott sat on the desk Stilinski had buried in Kyle’s files, Stilinski sat in his chair.  The only space Derek found to sit was right next to Stiles’ chair on the corner of the sheriff’s desk.  Without apparently thinking about it, Stiles leaned forward and crossed his arms against Derek’s thigh, setting his head against them like a pillow.  Derek frowned down at him briefly, setting his hand at the back of Stiles’ neck.  Black lines drew up from the inside of his arm, pulling some of the pain.  Stiles was clearly done for the day.

“I was there too,” Derek said, more for the sketch artist’s benefit than anybody else.  He still looked to the sheriff for permission as he pointed toward the sketch.  “I can help with the rest.”

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at him, and he knew it had more to do with Stiles than with Derek’s sudden reversal on his earlier stance of non-cooperation.  Stilinski let it slide and nodded.  

“Kyle just wants the picture signed off on.  Doesn’t matter which of you gets it that far,” he said.  Stiles’ fingers tucked into the pocket of Derek’s jeans so he was a little harder to shake off and he sagged a little more of his weight against him, apparently taking that as permission to take a nap.  Derek huffed his amusement and turned his attention to the sketch.  He squinted and frowned at the efforts so far.

“The eyes are wrong,” he said.  “Not so far apart and set deeper...”

*0*0*0*


	5. Chapter 5

The doorbell ringing was not the last thing Chris Argent expected to hear that day, but it was the last thing he _wanted_ to hear after the morning he had suffered through.  It was one thing to lie on the phone; he was a salesman, he was _good_ at lying.  It just wasn’t as entertaining to have to do it in person.  He didn’t want to.  Chris almost ignored the door.

The second time it rang a little longer and then in quick bursts because someone was playing with the button instead of pushing it.  That narrowed the list of potential visitors to the teenaged variety and, while less than welcome, at least he didn’t have to cover his tracks with them.

“What do you want?” Chris asked as he opened the door.  He let his annoyance show.  Scott, Derek and Stiles waited on the other side of it.  Stiles stood with his finger still on the door bell.  It chimed once more for good measure.  Chris narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything; the kid still looked like he had gone a few rounds with the worst of the best the MMA had to offer.  If the doorbell really made him feel that much better, fine.

“An audience,” said Stiles.  “And it’s kind of worth hearing.  Promise.”

Chris sighed and kicked the door open, letting them inside with a wave.  The door was hardly closed behind Scott before Derek was talking.  

“Your hunter friend Hutch is in town,” he said.  Stiles shoved him for the obvious dig, so maybe the teens weren’t there to be completely annoying.

“We thought you should know about it,” said Stiles.  He motioned between himself and Scott as the considerate ones; Chris noted that Derek wasn’t included in it.

“Thanks,” said Chris.  “But I’ve already got that part figured out.”

There was no small satisfaction in getting to watch Derek Hale’s eyes try to pop out of his wolfy head.  

“What- how’d you know?” came the obvious question.  Chris picked up the cell phone that had been ringing most of the morning, gave it a little wave.

“Funniest thing happened.  My contacts decided to return my calls.  Today,” he said.  Scott tilted his head.

“The network that shut you out three days ago,” he clarified.  Chris nodded.

“Any of them cop to killing my jeep?” asked Stiles dryly.

“Those two haven’t checked back yet,” Chris replied.  Stiles crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

“Can I get their names for my scrapbook?” he asked.  “You know, maybe send them the bill, or something?”

Chris smiled, the fake one he used when he was annoyed and being polite.  “The nice part about this double-agent thing I’ve got going on lately?  I don’t have to name names.”

Stiles sighed, rolled his eyes but nodded anyway.

“What are you hearing about Hutch then?” asked Derek.

“He thinks we stole one of his pet projects when we busted you out,” said Chris.  “She apparently disappeared the same night.  Made a big mess going about it, too.”

“Life would be so much easier if you guys would just believe in coincidence,” Stiles complained.

“So what are you telling them?” asked Scott.

“That I’ll keep an eye out for anyone with a wolf?” said Chris.  He shrugged.  “I’m not dropping everything for the Hutchinsons’ projects.  As far as they know, I’m retired and not available unless there’s a problem.  A lost wolf isn’t a problem.   _Maybe_ they’ll call me when they find her.”

“It isn’t a problem _yet_ ,” corrected Derek, frowning.  Stiles jumped like Derek had kicked him and looked over at him in something close to shock.  The werewolf had to explain it for him.  “It could be a problem for everyone.  Depending on how abused she is.  Coming from them?  She could be worse than Peter was when he woke up.”

“Oh.”  Stiles scrunched his face up and scrubbed at his hair.  “So you’re saying we _should_ be dropping everything for this?  Before another serial killing spree happens and McCall becomes an even bigger pain in the ass?”

Chris stared at Stiles.  “It saddens me that _that’s_ the message you get from a serial killing spree.”

Scott snorted, amused.  Stiles just shrugged.  “Hey.  What ya gonna do?” he muttered.

Chris rolled his eyes.  He crossed his arms and shrugged.  “Me? About the problem at hand?  Nothing.  I’m going to keep my head down and hope nobody has footage of those fights.  I don’t like that they’re in town.  I definitely don’t like that they think you stole their wolf, because that can get back to me and Allison.”

“So we find their wolf,” said Scott.

“What, and give her back?” said Chris.  He surprised even himself, but after seeing a teenage kid put through the hell normally reserved for the wolves, he was grudgingly changing a few opinions.

“No...” Stiles was quick to defend his friend’s strange conclusion.  “We find her first.  Then... We tell them to move out before they start something they don’t want to start.  I mean, how bad can it be?  Who’s in town? Just Hutch and maybe Mark’s pack?  There’s more of us than there are of them.”

“I’m not declaring war on hunters in my own territory,” Chris replied.

“We’re not asking you to,” said Stiles.  “We’re just saying _maybe_ we’ll set it up, just in case.”

Chris pressed a hand to his face, willing away the headache known as _werewolves_ \+ _Stiles Stilinski_.

“My god,” he muttered.  He took a deep breath and looked back up at them.  “Fine.  Are we done here?”

Stiles just smirked at him.

 

*o*o*

 

The house that Deaton assured her belonged to the new alpha of the territory was more rundown than the one Talia was used to seeing as a den.  It didn't show the care of a large pack, just a mowed front lawn and the swept front porch of teenagers barely doing their chores.  Deaton seemed to sense Talia's hesitance and confusion.

"Melissa is a single mother.  A nurse at the hospital with too much on her hands," he said.  "And then Peter bit her son and added to her to-do list.  This is, - according to Derek and Cora, and Peter,-  Melissa's territory.  But she's not a wolf."

Talia's thoughtful gaze met Deaton's.  Now the woman was curious.  

"Her son Scott is a true alpha, so there must be something in the genes," said Deaton with a smirk.  "But you're safe here.  And this is where Stiles is, for now, so I imagine this is where you'll find Cora and Derek."

"She doesn't run a very tight ship," said Talia quietly.  "It must drive Derek mad."

"They're all teenagers," said Deaton. "The kids have been working on his sanity for over a year now.  Melissa took over just weeks ago.  She's the last thing he has to worry about."

Talia looked down at the new clothes Deaton had bought for her - the borrowed sundress returned already - and took a breath.  Her kids had been alive the whole time.  New packs, new lives, on their own.

"I don't know... They think I'm gone..." The worry gnawed at her.  She should have figured out the truth on her own years ago.   She should have come home.  "I feel like I betrayed them, leaving them out on their own, believing what I was told and now..."

Deaton caught her hand.  "It's alright.  You are here.  That's what they'll see."

"I see all the missing years," said Talia. "They're grown."

"And their pack has room for their mother, no matter how old they get," said Deaton.  

As he spoke, Melissa McCall's car pulled into the driveway of the house across the street.  The driver got out, dark haired and energetic like Derek, but too young.  He jumped up to the porch with the ease of years of practice.  The passenger got out, opening the back door even as he shut his own.  

"Full service Chauffeur?" asked the teenager who climbed carefully out.

"No," came the reply from a familiar voice.  "Scott said his mom never figured out the childlocks.  I could leave you in there, see if he was right."

The teenager shrugged and caught up to Derek, leaning into his shoulder as they walked toward the porch.  

"We should probably fix that for her," said Derek.

"Don't.  First it's the car doors... Then it's the roof.  Don't spoil the new alpha.  Bad plan," returned Stiles.

Talia looked to see that Deaton saw what she did.

"Derek?" she asked, her voice soft enough she hoped she couldn't be heard beyond the safety of the car.  "And the other is Stiles?"

Deaton nodded.  "Stiles got a little roughed up.  But they came back in one piece."

Talia watched her son disappear into the house, healthy and safe.  She hadn't needed to worry.  She could have stayed in her little attic locker, with the predictable day to day she had known with the hunters.  All the daily pain and guilt and a hundred other things easier than dealing with the loss of her pack and family.  

But, somehow, her son had shown up and destroyed the routine, just for five minutes, just long enough to drag her out of it.  A teenager picked a fight with Hutch, showed more spirit than Talia had bothered to work up in years.  And here she was, alone and watching.

Talia Hale had a careful regard for fate; she couldn't prove it didn't exist any sooner than she could prove it did.  It seemed stupid to waste the opportunity - hard won, from the way Stiles moved - that the two boys had set in motion for her.  

She reached for the door, smiled back at Deaton.  She had to at least try.

 

*0*0*0*


	6. Chapter 6

The front door all but slammed, announcing Scott's presence.  Melissa stood and moved to the hall,  out of the living room with the others, and caught her son at the first floor landing.

"Did you get him to go to the doctor?" she called up to him.  Scott huffed, an annoyed sound that was obviously a big negative.

"No. Derek will have to make him," said Scott.  Melissa blinked, surprised to hear a bitter jealousy in her kid's tone.

"What's going on-"

"Don't ask me!" Scott tossed his hands and started back up to his room.  He stopped and watched the door so Melissa crossed her arms and leaned against the wall to wait.  The door opened and Derek - was the man _smiling_?! - and Stiles walked in.  Stiles came up short when he saw Melissa, Derek walking right into the back of him.

"What did the doctor say?  And who did you see?" Melissa asked Stiles.  The teenager radiated guilt.  Derek frowned.  Melissa looked at him.  "And _you_ better not have pulled some elaborate jailbreak from the sheriff station or there's gonna be problems."

"We didn't get to the hospital," said Stiles.  "We ran into trouble so I went to file a report.  Kyle backed off.  Then we had to go warn Chris, but he already knew..."

Melissa held up a hand for a pause in the ramble.  "What kind of trouble?"

"The kind from Nevada who think I stole their wolf," said Stiles.

"Then you should definitely be checked out by the hospital," said Melissa.  At Stiles’ protest, Melissa held up her hand, shook her head.  "Documentation."

Derek sighed and nodded.  "She's right. You should go."

Melissa watched as Stiles slumped.  The expected refusal didn't happen.  How very un-Stiles of him.  Melissa pointed the teen toward the kitchen.

"You.  In there to wait for me," she said to Stiles.  She then pointed toward Derek.  "And _you_ in there."

Derek turned to go as ordered but stopped, much like Scott had earlier.  Melissa looked to the door.  It knocked.  Werewolves were better than any doorbell.  She shooed them off and moved to answer it.  Derek looked expectantly at the door.  Melissa pointed again.

"My house.  Go."

They scattered from her tone, Scott pouncing down the stairs to chase Stiles into the kitchen.  Derek, however, lurked near the living room entry just far enough away to not get shoo'ed again, his head tilted oddly.  Melissa accepted his curiosity and finally peeked out onto her porch.

"Alan?" she said, surprised.  She could count on one hand the number of times her son's boss had visited the house.  Especially rare was the visit without a phone call first.  Never with a guest.  That's when Melissa saw the dark haired woman standing just off the vet's shoulder.  She looked quickly to Derek, checking memories against faces and trying to make sense of it.  She had known Talia Hale by reputation and ad pages only, a lawyer with a hard edge and a big network.  Once or twice, she had brought clients in to the hospital on Melissa's shift, but that was years ago.  The woman beside Alan was smaller, the proud smile faded.  If she wasn't the woman Melissa remembered, she was a very close relative.

"May we come in?" asked Alan, his usual formal self.  Melissa foresaw meltdowns in the immediate future and nodded quickly, opening the door further.  It was better to have meltdowns in the house than on the porch.  She stepped back and waved Derek out of the living room, the door still blocking his view of their visitor.

"Cora?" Melissa called.  To Alan and the familiar face with him, she said, "Maybe the kitchen would be a good place to start?"

By then, Derek seemed to have placed the scent he was chasing.  His eyes were wide and a look of heart-crushing _sadness_ took over his usual stoic glare.  The huge young man seemed suddenly tiny to Melissa and no older than Scott, just as lost.  Her idea of trying to offer the family some semblance of privacy out of the front hall seemed silly then.  Melissa shut the door to clear the line of sight and looked to where Alan was showing his guest to the kitchen.  By then Cora had appeared at Derek's shoulder where he blocked the living room entry.  On a gamble, Melissa looked to the dark haired woman walking from the room.

"Talia?" she called softly.  It seemed to startle the woman's children, but they stayed riveted to the living room entry.  Talia looked back at Melissa, a small surprised smile on her face.  Then she saw Derek and Cora staring at her, both looking like they were seeing ghosts.  For werewolves, their disbelief was almost comical, if Melissa hadn't already been caught by the significance herself.  She wasn't even going to assume she understood, but it wasn't every day that the dead came back to life.  Even for werewolves.

Cora broke first, shoving past her brother's shoulder to wrap Talia in a hug so fierce Melissa was worried the woman might break.  Instead she smiled and returned it.  Derek had stepped forward at his sister's push but still stood just outside of the reunion, watching in obvious disbelief.  He caught Melissa watching him and seemed to back off again but Melissa stepped away from the door to move around the group and give them the hallway.  She paused at Derek's shoulder, arms crossed and a smirk on her face.

"I dunno," she said dryly.  "I'm just a nurse, but... She looks pretty real to me."

Melissa poked Derek in the shoulder then and stepped away.  She dared place a hand on Talia's shoulder as she edged past them into the kitchen, to offer the woman a mother's support.  Then, with a little help from Alan, she herded her two boys back away from the hall to give the Hales their space.

 

*0*0*0*


	7. Chapter 7

Stilinski followed Kyle McCall home that night.  For no reason other than he could.  His kid was there.  It was now common knowledge that Melissa invited him on a new-but-regular basis.   They were both headed in the same general direction.  Stilinski’s car just happened to have a light bar.   _Oh_ , he had fun.

The arrival at the house was peaceful enough, mostly because neither of them could easily park close to the house.  The sheriff decided to just block Melissa’s car in the driveway, one of the perks of the lightbar on the top.  Beside her car was Allison’s.  Lydia Martin’s car was parked behind Allison’s. Scott’s bike was propped by the handlebar up against the garage.  And there was a bicycle locked to the front porch, so that was Danny.  On the street in front of the house were two motorcycles, taking up more than their share of parking space.  Another car that Stilinski didn’t recognize at all was parked in close behind one of the bikes, looking like it had been hastily parked and narrowly avoided the tire.

Kyle had to park across the street.  Stilinski had to stifle a very big grin.  Kyle looked very confused as he walked up the lawn.

“I take it we missed a party invite?” he commented to the sheriff as they approached the porch.  Stilinski nodded.

“They happen every so often lately.  Kind of impromptu.  Usually you’re at work,” he replied.  Kyle resolutely refused to bite and the sheriff happily jumped up the steps ahead of him.  He could feel the lasers burning into the back of his neck as he let himself in Melissa’s house without knocking.  Their kids did it all the time.  He and Melissa had come to an agreement on the door-knocking thing as consenting adults.

The first thing Stilinski did was check the living room for the multitude of people promised by the cars in the front.  Sure enough, he saw the line of heads over the back of the couch.  Stilinski hung up his jacket in the hall, then had to stop because Kyle had gone to investigate the living room in his wake.

“Why are they all here?” Kyle asked.  Stilinski pointed to the TV, the bright colors even brighter in contrast to the green Hulk in the center of it crashing through New York City to save a guy in a red and yellow tin can free-falling from space.

“ _Avengers_ , from the looks of it,” said Stilinski.  Kyle glowered.  Still, his curiosity was caught and he edged further into the living room.  Stilinski helped himself to an empty chair.  He had heard about the kids’ pack-meetings but never witnessed them.  Now he saw a tangle of kids crowded across the floor, leading up to the couch.  The sight on the couch is where he had to take a moment and reassert his sense of reality.  

Talia Hale sat in the middle of the couch, Derek close on one side and Peter on the other.  Curled in her lap like a five year old was the too-tall-for-lap-sitting Cora, who had her legs stretched across her uncle’s lap.  Talia.  Hale.  The woman whose _death_ the sheriff had personally investigated no less than three times, minimum, since the fire.  It was a case that wouldn’t close and now he knew why.  She was very much alive, awake, enjoying a movie, in Melissa’s home.  The sheriff’s jaw dropped a little without him even being aware of it.  

Scrunched in between Talia and Derek’s legs was Stiles, completely zoned on the movie and leaned on Derek.  Scott had propped a pillow up against Stiles’ side and was stretched out at Talia’s feet, with Allison and Lydia using him for a pillow.  Isaac was propped up against Allison’s legs.  One of the twins leaned against Lydia.  The other was curled up against Danny on the other side of Stiles at the end of the couch.

The sheriff’s presence was acknowledged by Peter and the twins, but everyone else seemed to be, for the most part, engrossed in their movie.  Cora looked like she might be asleep wedged against her brother’s shoulder in her mother’s lap.  Stiles looked somewhat _drugged_.  The sheriff was just frowning at that realization when Melissa appeared in the doorway.  He looked around Kyle to see her smile at him and crook a finger at him to draw him to the kitchen.  Kyle noticed the communication, immediately disapproved, and excused himself from the room to avoid witnessing it further.  Melissa’s lips tugged up a little higher on one side, the adorable lopsided smile that had seriously doomed Stilinski the first time she aimed it at him.

“I guess I’ll be back,” Stilinski whispered as he eased himself out of the chair again.  Nobody argued.  He followed Melissa into the kitchen, surprised when the woman immediately put a mug of coffee in his hand.  It was apparently going to be a long night.  He took a sip as he waited.

“If that’s what a pack looks like, I think you’re gonna need a bigger house,” he commented quietly.  Melissa smirked and nodded, then looked up at him sideways.  

“Are you suggesting we all move in together?” she asked.

The sheriff shook his head and shrugged.  “Actually, Stiles did that this morning.  I’m just worried about the parking situation out front.”

Melissa smiled and leaned back against the counter’s edge, keeping an eye on the living room across the hall.  She kept her voice down, mindful of the movie-zoned werewolves in the next room.

“I think you noticed the new addition,” she said.

“Two of them, actually,” said the sheriff.  “I’m not sure if I’m more worried about seeing Peter in your living room or Talia.  Assuming neither one are figments of my imagination.”

Melissa shook her head.  “Nope.  Alive and mostly well,” she said.  “Which, speaking of, I got your son to the hospital this afternoon.  He has pain meds, and cracked ribs.  You should mention that to Kyle.”

“Yes, because we’re on such good speaking terms,” replied the sheriff.  Still, he was surprised and quite glad to hear that the worst his son had sustained in his fights was something that could heal on its own.  With Scott and Derek both in full-on mother-hen mode toward the kid, Stiles would be better in no time.  He coughed into his coffee mug when Melissa didn’t drop back into her earlier conversation track.

“Why is Talia Hale on your couch?” he asked quietly.

“Because she needs a place to stay and we need to sort this out _yesterday_ , seeing as she’s the wolf that Stiles’ new-best-buddy Hutch is in town to fetch,” said Melissa.  The sheriff choked on his coffee.

“I was thinking we should call Chris,” she added, obviously figuring she’d get in the next bombshell before Stilinski tried his drink again.  He checked his uniform to be sure he wasn’t wearing any coffee, stalling as he thought it over.

“I’m thinking that’s not the best idea,” he replied.

“I’m thinking I’ll do it anyway,” said Melissa.  She gave him another disabling grin, then ticked her reasons off on her fingers.  “He’s a hunter.  He knows how to handle other hunters.  He knows what they’ll be most likely to do.”

“He’s a hunter,” said Stilinski carefully.  “The _double-agent_ in the wolf-pack out there.”

“He won’t put the kids in danger,” said Melissa.  She was fully confident of it.  Stilinski wished he was, too.

“It’s asking a lot of him,” he said.  “He and Derek still go at it any time they’re in the same room with each other.  The Argents and the Hales have a really, _really_ rocky history, Mel.  Maybe we shouldn’t be trusting Talia to him just yet.  Not when he’s got who knows how many hunters on his case about Tahoe.”

“I think we can win him over,” said Melissa.  She was completely sincere about it, too.  She waved toward the living room.  “Just show him that.  Those kids in there, being kids.  With their _mom_.  If I’ve learned anything about Chris lately, it’s that he pays attention to that.”

Stilinski looked at her in open disbelief.  “The man who talked us into pulling _weapons_ on our own kids.  Are we talking about the same Chris here?”

“Yeah, the one who helped you get Stiles back home,” Melissa replied.  Stilinski nodded.

“And the same one who swore up and down he wasn’t lifting a finger to help Derek get out of the same mess.”

“Fine,” said Melissa.  She gnawed at the inside of her lip, thinking.  “Then he’ll help us because I’ll tell him to.  That’s how it works with the kids, that’s how it’ll work with him.”

Stilinski let out a surprised laugh at the logic.  

Melissa cut him a glare.  “Shut up and drink your coffee.”

That’s exactly what he did.  He figured he was going to need it.

 

*0*0*0*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's posts were brought to you un-beta'd thanks to our sponsor: Writer's Joy - that feeling you get when you're sooooo close to being done with a project that has consumed your life for a month...


	8. Chapter 8

Chris stood at the front door and glared out at the street.  He started to raise a hand to knock but withdrew.  His attention kept falling on his daughter's car, parked-in to the space.   Completely and totally entrenched in a pack of werewolves.

Beacon Hills had no less than six new hunters in town, hunters who knew nothing about her beyond the Argent name.   And the Argent name would do her no good if she were picked up in the company of Scott or Isaac, or god forbid Hutch's missing wolf.  She would be handed a knife and told to stop the sickness before it corrupted her mind completely.  

The dangerous world Chris had grown up in was no place for his daughter.  Yet she kept insisting on living in it.  And Chris was all but encouraging it, standing on the McCalls' porch, because Melissa had called him.

Swearing under his breath, Chris finally knocked.  He was surprised when it opened automatically.  Derek Hale stood on the other side of it.  That did nothing to improve Chris' mood.

"Down, Fido," he said.  "I was invited."

Derek stared at him.  Chris realized he had taken the wrong tact when the werewolf gave a slow half-smile and woofed at him.  Derek's human self did a fair impression of his wolf.  Did Hale just crack a joke?  Chris rolled his eyes as he stepped past him into the house.  Derek pointed him toward the living room, followed him in.

"Chris," greeted the sheriff.  He stood leaned against the closed-off fireplace and waved Chris toward an easy chair.  It was all a little suspicious, but it didn't hit home why until he looked over at the couch.  Four brunettes sat crowded comfortably on the couch, his daughter one of them:  Melissa, Cora, Talia Hale, and then Allison sat furthest from him.

Talia Hale.

"Holy hell," blurted Chris.

"It doesn't get _that_ bad until you hear where she’s been," said Melissa calmly.  She looked from Chris to Allison and back.  "But yeah, I'm a little worried about the resemblance myself.  I don't think the boys from Nevada are capable of doing their research before doing something stupid."

Chris openly stared as he realized what Melissa meant.   _Talia Hale_ was the wolf the Hutchinsons were in town to hunt.  And, dark haired with the high cheek bones, Allison looked a lot like her daughter suddenly.  If Stiles could be grabbed as a beta of Derek's pack, Allison, or even Melissa, could be mistaken for a Hale.

Something moved beside his chair, startling Chris just enough.  He looked over to see Scott McCall crouched beside the chair and offering a bottle of ice cold Sierra Nevada.  A good brew for a suddenly bad night.

"Remember that war you said you didn't want to start?" he asked.  Chris did not appreciate the boy's smug grin, but he took the offered ale anyway.

"So what do you suggest we do about it?" Chris asked Melissa.

"I was thinking that for now, she'd be safest at your place," said Melissa.  Chris' and Talia's gaze met, neither one of them in agreement with Melissa's logic apparently.  "It's the last place they would look."

"This isn't a game, Melissa.  You can't just play hide and seek, keep-away rules," said Chris.  "You are trying to strategize against an opponent you don't know.  And it won't work."

"That's why I want _you_ to keep her safe," said Melissa, nodding as though she agreed.  "You know them, you can get ahead of them.  The rest of us would only be playing catch-up."

Chris scowled at the carpet, considering her point.  He rested his forehead to the cool bottle again, shaking his head.  "I don't think you know what you're asking."

Talia caught his eye and he looked up to a hard, crystal blue stare.  "I've lived with hunters for six years now.  I know what she's asking," said Talia.  She held her daughter's hands, the tight grip they traded the only tell that she was worried.  "If I were to leave town tonight, try to draw them off, then what? There's no guarantees it would work.  They could stay, harass Stiles and the sheriff.  Or you.  You would just be waiting for more mistakes."

"There is no way to make them leave.  Because even if she left, you couldn't tell them that.  The first thing they would ask is... _How do you know?_ " added Melissa.  "And the only answer to that drags down every one of us here."

Chris sighed into his beer.  He looked around the room at the gathering of the pack.  The sheriff stood against the fireplace with Stiles and then Derek, the latter two waiting, watching Chris with matching looks of pending-disappointment.  Lydia sat in a papasan chair like the Queen of Sheba with twin werewolf sentinels on either side.  The circle was closed off by Danny and then Isaac bridging the gap to the couch, on which sat four women obviously intent on Chris' personal _destruction_.  And then Scott, still crouched at Chris' right hand, with all the faith he could scrounge up.  Faith apparently borrowed from Melissa.

Chris wasn't sure Melissa knew what they had so obviously created already, what she had dragged his daughter in to.  It was his own fault.  His own offhanded idea to keep the kids in line had backfired on him beautifully.  Now he sat on the receiving end of nothing short of _blackmail_ enforced by a very, very large pack.   Normal packs were three or four strong.  This one?  There were no less than two sub-groups to Melissa's little pack, Derek's on one side of the room and Scott's on the other.  Three alphas, two from the same family and the other from an old one.  He and Allison followed different alphas but _both_ were ensconced in the group.

The hunter in Chris saw the lines easily.  As a hunter, he knew he would try to control the humans, use them against the rest of the pack.   Weakest link first.  Lydia had been adopted by two werewolves, former alphas, so she was as safe and well-defended as Allison.  His attention went to the injured Stiles, then Danny who stood a little outside of the others.  

"Fine," Chris said.  He looked to Melissa again.  "If we're going to do this.  There's security to be considered."

The relief in the room suddenly was a collective gasp for air, the fading of tension.  Stiles crossed his arms and edged a little closer to Derek protectively, still wary.

"Like what?" he asked.

"Like the parking lot in Scott's front yard has to stop," said Chris.  "Park further out, or carpool if you have to.  But a pack this big is a red flag.  Hutch will want to tear it apart while he’s in town."

"But we're stronger in the group," said Stiles.

"And that's why it's a threat," said the sheriff quietly.  Stiles wasn't happy about it but quieted.

Melissa nodded and glanced at Stilinski and Talia briefly.  She saw whatever she was looking for and her attention went back to Chris.  "All the more reason for Talia to stay with you.  There's my place, Casey's, and yours.  Smaller traffic pattern between three places, harder to watch."

"If we do this," Chris said, looking around to be sure everyone was listening. "Talia, Stiles and I will have big targets on our backs.  And Stiles is..."

"If you say I'm the weakest link, I _might_ have to stab you with something," interrupted Stiles.

"-is injured," continued Chris.  "And the easier target."

The sheriff smirked and tugged on his son's shoulder.  "Guess who gets ride-alongs for awhile..."

"We put two targets in one place and limit the risk to the third," said Chris. "Talia staying with me sweetens the deal.  He should be okay that way."  He looked to Allison.  "But I want you to stay with Lydia until this goes away.  Starting now."

Allison nodded, exchanged a small grin with an all-but-preening Lydia.  Melissa looked around the room.  She frowned.

"Keep your cell phones charged and _on_ ," she ordered.  "And stick in pairs if you go out."

"Can we hold hands, too?" said one of the twins, a smirk on his face.  Chris carefully face-palmed a beer bottle.  Melissa rolled her eyes.

"I don't care if you _tango_ , just no more than three to a group in public.  Got me?"

Heads bobbed up and down around the circle.  Melissa stood up.  "Good.  Then for now, unless your name ends in Hale or Stilinski, scatter.  Shoo.  Go home."

"What about McCall?" asked Scott.  Chris thwacked the kid in the back of the head since it was still in easy reach.

"Or Lahey?" added Isaac.  Allison was standing by then and passed along the headsmack on Melissa's behalf.

“McCall or Lahey get to clean the kitchen from our nice messy dinner,” replied Melissa.  She pointed toward the kitchen.  “Out.”


	9. Chapter 9

The pack was messy, Scott decided as he trudged up the stairs with Isaac, but he really, honestly didn't care.  It felt real to him, he had people who depended on him and who he could depend on right back.  It bothered him a little that he didn't know them all that well, like the twins.  He didn't even really trust Derek - although that was shifting after hearing about Tahoe -but he knew he could count on them if he needed to.  And _everyone_ hated Peter.  But at the same time... He had found a _pack_ , a big one, and it wasn't just Stiles, Isaac and Allison in it with him.  They were just his corner of it.  He caught Isaac watching him, the concerned expression on his face proof that Scott shouldn't be smiling so big after kitchen duty.

"What?" Isaac asked.

"You know, it's just... It's always been Mom and me.  We don't have a big family.   _Stiles_ is the closest thing I've ever had to a brother, or cousins..." Scott stalled out, trying to get at it.  "But lately?  I dunno."

"Yeah, it feels like that," said Isaac.  He nodded, suddenly just as distracted.  "It's different than before, you know?  Bigger, but I think I'm part of it."

"I could do without Peter in it," added Scott.  "But whatever."

The pair rounded the corner and Scott lazily kicked open his bedroom door.  They stopped short, startled by someone sitting on Scott's bed in the room, the lights already on.

Isaac caught Scott's arm to keep him from doing anything stupid.   "What the-"

"Why?" asked Scott as he stared at his father.  It wasn't his most communicative moment, but it summed up everything he could ever want to know from the man.   _Why the hell was he in Scott's room_ took up too many words.

"I was wondering if we could have a chat," said Kyle.  

Scott stared at him, slack jawed.  "So you decided to ask my empty room for permission or something?"

"No," said Kyle.  He was making an effort at being rational.  "You have people over.  I was waiting until they were gone."

"Well, they're not.  Keep waiting, somewhere else."

Kyle shook his head, rolled his eyes.  He took a sigh and said mildly, "The both of you, just get in here and shut the damn door."

Isaac exchanged a look with Scott before reluctantly complying.  The door closed, Kyle stood. He pointed one kid to the chair and the other to the bed to sit.  Scott slouched where he was told, trying to think up a good lie.  At least Isaac could help him out with this part; Scott knew he was no good at the lies he relied on lately.

"What is going on with this family?" asked Kyle.  Scott huffed.

"Some family," he said.

"Well," said Isaac, an offering of peace between the two strangers who happened to be related by blood.   "At least you don't get beat for opening your mouth.  He actually _wants_ you to talk."

Scott needed that little bit of perspective; his dad wasn't someone like Stilinski - was he supposed to call him _Casey_ now? - but at least he wasn't like Isaac's dad.  And he was still _alive_ , so there was that.

"Sorry," said Scott.  He refused to say if the apology was to Kyle or to Isaac for the fight he was undoubtedly going to witness.

"Scott?" asked Kyle.  He expected an answer this time and Scott still had nothing to give him.

"I don't know.  They're friends.  We had them over.  People do that," said Scott.  "Especially after what happened with Stiles and Derek.  It's the kind of thing people do..."

"Since when are you so chummy with the Argents?" asked Kyle.  "I could understand when you and Allison were looking for your parents.  But this?  I've been here three weeks, I've seen them here once and that was when they brought Stiles back."

Scott furrowed his brow and tried not to wonder what planet his father _actually_ lived on.  "Allison was my girlfriend.  She was over here all the time," he said.  Kyle looked like he had choked on air.

"You dated that?"  he asked.   _That?!_ Scott stared.  There was something _seriously_ wrong with his father.  Scott was glad he had his back to Isaac because there was no way he took it any better.

"Yes.  And now she and Isaac... have their own thing going so she's still over a lot," said Scott.  "We're still friends."

"That family is dangerous," said Kyle.

Scott laughed.  "Yeah, so is mine.  So what?"

"So you shouldn't have them around," said Kyle.  "There's a good chance-"

Kyle broke off as the door behind him burst open and Stiles tumbled in.  "Dude! What are you- oh."

Stiles stood off from Kyle, pretending to be surprised.  There was too much anger under it though, Scott could hear his heart rate.  Derek stood at the door, curiosity tempered by a defensiveness that surprised Scott.  He almost grinned;  Derek came upstairs to save him from his dad?

"Nothing," said Scott, answering the question Stiles hadn't gotten out.  He motioned at Kyle.  "He wanted to know what the party was."

Stiles rolled his eyes.  "None of your business.  Not your house," he said.  Kyle wasn't impressed.

"Why are you here, Stiles?" he asked.

"Because my _dad's_ still here?" returned Stiles.  Scott ducked his head to hide a grin.  So _Now_ Stiles was okay with their parents hooking up.  Of course.

"Yeah, talking about hunters and fights," said Kyle.  "I don't suppose anyone will explain that one for me."

Scott hesitated, stuck between panic and anger as he realized Kyle had been listening in.  The house wasn't that big; they should have thought about that before.  Stiles, however, was really good at running his mouth and thinking at the same time.

"It's called D&D.  Dungeons and Dragons.  Role play party game made by nerds?" said Stiles.  Isaac snickered.  Scott's jaw dropped despite himself.  That was the _last_ excuse he would have ever tried.  Stiles carried on.  "There's a storyteller.  There's people around to listen and we try to change the story.  Dad sucks at it but Mel's pretty good... Chris is epicly bad."

There was a moment of quiet, Kyle tense and studying Stiles.  "Are you high?"

"No." Stiles looked about like his brain was going to start issuing steam.  "I can't get _high_ on downers, okay?   _Down_ is not _Up_.  Stop.  And I have a prescription.  A nurse _administered_ them.  Would you _Stop_ looking for something to hang me with?"

Stiles had gone well past the point he had meant to shut up and Scott saw it on his friend's face, heard it in his breathing.  

"He's right," said Scott.  He looked up at Kyle, stood from his slouch on the edge of the bed to meet him eye to eye instead.  "I know you're looking into my friends.  I know about the charges against Allison.  And _I_ want you to stop."  It almost caused him physical pain, but he managed to add, “Please.”

"Then tell me why I should," returned Kyle.  "Tell me what's going on around here doesn't actually get back to the people you say are your friends.  Damn near everyone in this house, Scott."

"It doesn't."

"Bullshit."  Kyle shook his head.  "You can try again when you've got something to counter a dozen incident reports over the last year alone.  Until then, it's on you."

Scott counted the small rebellion as a success in that Kyle finally left, very carefully edging around Derek in the doorway.  His dad knew whose side he was on.

"Maybe we should tell him," said Scott once he was sure Kyle was back in the guest room and not lurking.  

Stiles shook his head.  "No _way_ dude.  We did _not_ put my dad through _years_ of this crap, just so you could cave after two _weeks_ of your dad poking into things.  No way."

"Besides," added Isaac.  "Look what your mom did.  If you tell him, he'll never leave."

"We are so not telling him," Scott decided quickly.  Stiles nodded his agreement.

Scott nodded between Stiles and the door that Derek was propping up. "So what'd you need up here?" he asked.  Stiles grinned at him.

"Nothing.  Derek told me what he heard.  Figured I'd rescue you," said Stiles.  Scott was amused for a few seconds before he frowned.

"You ran up here for that?" he asked.  "With busted ribs?"

"Shut up.  You take worse.  I can run up some stairs," said Stiles.  Scott reached behind him to the abandoned bed and smacked his friend over the head with one of the pillows.  Stiles ducked belatedly and it took him over to the door where Derek glared at him.

"Keep it up and you're gonna be benched when we need you," Scott said.  

Stiles left the room with a dismissive wave toward Scott.  "Oh my _god_ why do I have friends."

Derek stayed leaned against the door, a half a smile on his face when he looked back to Scott.  It was comfortable, which surprised Scott.  The guy had helped him out when he needed it, but he was a jerk every other minute of the day, and they got along about as well as oil and water.  Now, it just didn’t seem to matter.  Derek could be a jerk all he wanted, he showed up when it counted and he’d gotten Stiles back home.

“Thanks for snooping on my dad,” Scott said.  His grin faded slightly, his look more sincere as he added, “And since I haven’t said it out loud yet... thanks for keeping Stiles safe.”

Derek’s amused look turned sober, not quite his usual glare, just enough to show that he’d taken Scott’s comment seriously.  “He’s Pack,” said Derek.  “I think maybe I get that now.”

 

*0*0*0*


	10. Chapter 10

Derek sat on the McCalls’ back porch, still distractedly listening to Chris and Talia spill everything they knew about hunters to Melissa and Stilinski.  The kitchen was crowded again: Talia, Cora, Peter, the Stilinskis, Isaac, Chris, and Melissa and Scott.  Sitting in the room with a hunter while his mother talked about what she had gone through wasn’t working.  

The Hutchinsons were the sons of Gerard Argent’s former partner.  The two families had, together, turned his mom into a lab rat, stuck in a cage, the testing-ground for Hunter technologies and their efforts to find a cure.  Everything Gerard’s hunters thought they knew about werewolves, anything that wasn’t their years of experience making wrong guesses, they had forced from Talia.  Any tools or tricks they thought they could use against other wolves, they tested it first on the strongest alpha that they could get their hands on.  For _years_.  

It made Derek angry, far too punchy for him to be any use at all to the discussion of how to send the Hutchinsons back to the hole in the ground they had come from.  Maybe Chris Argent hadn’t known about it, maybe his mother had never met him there, but he was still the only hunter in the room.  

So Derek had kissed his mother on the forehead while she talked and quietly walked out the door.  It was probably about a half an hour before the door opened again.  He wasn’t surprised when Stiles sat down next to him.  He was surprised when Scott sat down next to Stiles, though.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.  He frowned at Stiles and his lack of a jacket.  It was late and it was cold and the kid was still healing.  “One of you forgot a coat.”

Stiles rolled his eyes.  “Look! Look where I’m sitting.  Between two human-shaped space heaters, okay? I’m fine.”

Scott grinned and Derek snuck a glance over at him while Stiles glared at the sky.

“Fine.  Why are you out here?” he asked again.

“Keeping Sourwolf company,” said Stiles.  “We didn’t want you out here getting ideas of revenge on your own.”

Derek’s amused expression disappeared.  He looked over at Stiles.  “I wasn’t thinking of revenge.”

“Really?” asked Stiles.  His pain meds would have to be wearing off by now, his energy was down, and he was quite serious.  “Because I was when I was in there.  And I am all for that idea and really wanted to get to you before Peter could.”

“What?”

“Pedro the pedo is scary on revenge kicks,” said Stiles. “He’s not allowed to help.”

Derek looked around Stiles to Scott.  “Why is he talking like this?  Make him shut up,” he said gruffly.  

Scott just stared back at him, gauging, trying to get a read on him.  Derek looked to Stiles again, his best commanding tone in play as he said, “No.”

Stiles shoved lightly at Derek’s shoulder.  “Don’t even tell me you’re not thinking it,” said Stiles.  He was just barely above a whisper but it was plenty loud to Derek.  “Do you _know_ what I would do to get my mom back?  You wanna know what I’d do to somebody who took her away from me in the first place?”

That made a crack and Derek flinched.

“I mean it,” said Stiles.  “I wanna help.  I don’t care...”

The details weren’t mentioned because Stiles was talking about murder, plain and simple, and those details were the devil of it.  Hunters weren’t werewolves, they were at a defensive disadvantage, and for Stiles to even think about going after one was premeditated.  Justified, but planned.  The kid was hurting, probably meant every word of what he said, but it would pass.  Derek shifted a little and carefully slung an arm around Stiles’ neck to tug him into a sideways hug.  Stiles slouched against him without really thinking about it.  Scott raised an eyebrow, his guard up just a little.  Derek watched him over Stiles’ head on his shoulder.

“You know that meeting Argent set up at the warehouse a few weeks ago?” he asked.  “Where your mom claimed the territory out from under you?”

Scott nodded, his expression surprised at the topic change.  Derek sighed, frustrated.

“I only showed up because I needed to talk to him.  Or I thought I did anyway.  I wanted to warn him that it was _your_ territory.  You’re just a kid, new to everything that the nemeton could bring down on us, and you were the only alpha he had for back-up.”

“What?” Scott asked.  Stiles tried to look up at him but gave up because of Derek’s hold on him.  He shoved Derek bodily sideways then, apparently deciding that if Derek wanted to hug it out then Derek could serve as a pillow again.  Stiles ended up leaned back against his chest to face Scott.  Derek rolled his eyes but allowed it.  He told Scott about what he had done to save Cora from the darach’s poisoning, about the effect it had on him.  How it had weakened him.

“I was gone over a week, trying to recover the whole time, and it didn’t come back,” Derek said.  “I could still feel my pack, but the power I’d felt as an alpha was just... a ghost.  It wasn’t there.  That’s why I didn’t reach out to you, let you know I was back.  I didn’t know what to expect.”

Scott stared at him, jaw slack and eyes a little wider.  He let out a laugh.  “I thought... wow.  I was just, way off track.”

Stiles lifted his arm off his knee to point at Scott.  Derek didn’t have to see his face to hear the smug smirk.  “He thought you were going to challenge him for your territory back.  Battle royale, to the _death_...”

“Yeah, well, I could have,” said Derek.  “Even if I wasn’t an alpha.  I didn’t want you to think I was a threat.”

“Total failure, man.” Scott shook his head, still laughing under his breath at the apparent miscommunication.  

“The only reason _your_ mom stepped up was because _you_ were a threat,” Stiles pointed from Scott to Derek.  “And to think she wasted all that effort.”

“I don’t think it was a waste,” said Scott.  Derek nodded.  Stiles looked back at Derek.

“But you’re back online now,” he said.  “It happened after the fights.  I saw...”

“Yeah,” said Derek.  “It came back.”

“I asked Alan about it,” said Stiles.  “Basically it means you stepped up and someone signed on to follow you.  You got your pack back.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Derek.  He shook his head, a small smile on his face.  “Peter sides with himself.  And Cora thinks I’m an idiot.  She wouldn’t let me lead band practice.”  Not that he could blame her.  They had very different ideas about life in general and she had come back just in time to see Derek fail every fight he took on.  It was hard to get that faith back, especially in an older brother.  Family was family and Pack was Pack, but the lines could fall differently.  “If it were to come down to me or Scott, she would back him.”

“Cora?” asked Scott.  Derek nodded.

“You’ll learn to sort it out,” he said.  Scott’s expression said the kid was already tying his brain into knots trying to _feel out_ just who was in his little corner of the big pack that Melissa had drawn.  Stiles poked Derek in the knee.

“That just leaves Peter.  I disagree with your version of pack,” he said.

“No,” said Derek.  “Ethan and Aiden helped.  They watched the fights.”

“Shit,” said Stiles.  “There were witnesses?  I’m never living that down.”

Derek rolled his eyes and tapped his palm to Stiles’ head.  The kid was intentionally dense.  Derek figured it was just as well to let him stay that way.  Scott, however, was still working it over.  He was not so easily silenced with just a glare anymore, Derek realized quickly.

“So Ethan and Aiden and Stiles?” asked Scott. “They brought you back?”

For a moment Derek was worried Stiles was going to add whiplash to the list of recovering injuries.

“Me?” he squawked.  “How’s _that_ work?”

Derek shrugged.  Scott grinned.

“The same way my mom’s an alpha,” he said.  “Because she said so, we said so, and we backed it up with whatever spark keeps Beacon Hills on the map.  Pack’s not a werewolf-thing.  Apparently they don’t check for ID or membership cards at the door.”

“Pack is what it is,” said Derek. “You can’t make it.  It finds you or it leaves you.”

Stiles was quiet and still, a little stressed suddenly, as he thought it through.  Scott just wouldn’t stop smirking and Derek wanted to kick him but Stiles was still in the way.

“That’s why you’ve been acting weird,” Scott said, entirely too helpful.  “You listen to him because you see him as alpha.  You argue with me ‘cause -”

“Cause you’re a pain in the ass,” Stiles finished for him.  “Yeah, I see how this works now.”

It did nothing to wipe the grin from Scott’s face.  “And if anybody else were to try using him as a pillow, they’d be on their ass.”

“Damn straight,” agreed Stiles.  Scott held up a hand, waggled side to side to show he was on the fence on that.

“I don’t know, it’s looking kinda bendy right now,” he said.  Derek leaned his elbow against his updrawn knee and buried his face in his hand.  He should have known the conversation would take that turn.

“Whatever,” said Stiles.  He refused to be moved from his human-shaped personal heater, no apparent regard for their image left at all.  Derek had to bite down on a grin.  They let it sit there for awhile, comfortable silence to match the apparently comfortable Stiles.  

Derek broke it with a little reluctance; he needed to get back to the point that had brought Scott and Stiles out to the porch to start with.  He wasn’t letting the idea of revenge stick in their minds.  The only one with any right to the topic was his mother, and all she wanted was to make the hunters go away, to keep Melissa’s newly extended family safe from the trouble she had unknowingly brought them.  Stiles and Scott starting their own quest would only work against that _and_ , with Scott’s father in town, it would land them both in jail.

“Which gets me back to avenging pack,” said Derek.  He caught their attention and looked to Scott.    “We’ve already seen what that does.  And I’m _not_ Peter.  We’ll defend each other, help your mom keep her territory.  That’s it.”

Stiles started to raise a protest but Derek pinned him with an arm across his collarbone.  “If I change my mind, I’ll tell you first.  But right now, the answer is staying _No_.”

Stiles fidgeted, tapped his heel against the porch and chewed at the inside of his lip.  He still disagreed.  It was working at his mind and didn’t want to leave.  Derek looked to Scott then.

“Can I trust you not to help him if he tries anything that stupid?” he asked.  Scott nodded without hesitation.

“We’ve got enough to worry about right now,” said Scott.  Stiles grumbled something but he seemed to give up.  He nodded, tucking his chin to Derek’s arm.

“Besides,” said Stiles quietly.  “There’s nothing we could do to them that could even come close to what they deserve.”

The shared sentiment made Derek feel a little better about the odds of keeping Stiles from poaching hunters when he wasn’t looking.  He ducked his forehead to rest against the back of Stiles’ head, surprisingly grateful for the usually-annoying teen’s existence.

 

*0*0*0*


	11. Chapter 11

*0*0*

 

Everything had happened so quickly.  In the space of a day, Talia had gone from dead to alive.  She had been hugging her children, one or the other of them, for six hours off and on.  They were both bigger, more grown.  Derek was withdrawn and seemed to be afraid she would break, while Cora was the opposite, a monkey trying to climb a tree to hide in every five minutes.  She hadn’t done that since she was eight and much shorter.  It had worked so much easier then, but now Cora could be settled by a kiss to the forehead and a hug around the shoulders.  Derek, however, Talia could only worry about, especially when faced with a young man who would hardly smile and had surprisingly little to say.

Earlier in the day, in the afternoon before they turned on the movie, Talia’s annoying little brother had told interesting stories about his own death and resurrection over the intervening years, somehow painting Derek and Scott McCall as villains and saints simultaneously.  Peter was still good with his stories, even if the others were compelled to jump in and correct his memory a few times.  It was nice to know some people didn’t grow up, no matter how annoying they could be about it.  Nice to come back to something that hadn’t changed.

And the day had closed off on a round-table discussion of hunters and how to handle them.  It was a taxing, draining conversation, especially once the clock struck twelve and Talia’s sleepless night on the run started to catch up with her.  She was tired.  No matter how many pots of coffee they kept going on, it eventually became clear that they would have no solutions by sunrise and sleep had to be set into the schedule.  Naps on crossed arms over the kitchen table weren’t going to cut it.  But, Talia resolved, neither was leaving her children to do it.

“Chris,” Talia said, interrupting an ongoing argument between the hunter and the sheriff about where in the city could best be defended at the lowest risk to civilians and pack.  It was one they kept repeating and it went nowhere.  “It’s late.  You’re tired.  You should go home.”

That stopped the men talking over each other, both of them looking from Talia to Melissa and back.  “I guess we can discuss this tomorrow.  You’re on day shifts?” Chris said to Stilinski.  

“Yeah, paper-pushing until all the i’s and t’s are crossed and dotted,” he said.  “So potentially for the next, oh, forever, maybe.”

“Then we’ll head out and be back for dinner tomorrow,” said Chris.  He nodded toward Stilinski.  “Your place.”

“I’ll bring the pizza,” the sheriff agreed.  Melissa looked on from where she leaned against the table, her head propped in her hand.  She nodded approval of the idea.

“Nobody better expect me to cook,” she said.  “Unless it’s coffee.”

Stiles sat next to Melissa, slumped forward with both elbows on the table and his head held up between his hands.  He looked between Melissa and the sheriff with something akin to disapproving belligerence.

“The two of you, what are you, like seventeen?” he asked.  “Lazy freeloaders.”

Talia smiled at the actual seventeen year old at the table and reached over to rest a hand at his forehead.  The effect was to mess up his hair, but the intent was just to make sure he was doing alright.  “They were just better at it than you are,” she told him.  Melissa gave a huff of laughter and nodded her agreement.  

“Tomorrow then,” Melissa said.  She stood from the table.  “Come on upstairs for a minute before you go, Talia.  You can borrow some clothes to get you through the next few days anyway.  Tomorrow we’ll put Lydia and Allison in charge of the shopping until the hunters are out of town.”

“I think, since it’s so late, I’d rather stay here for the night?” said Talia.  “Not to impose, but...”  She cast a look to where Cora and Derek sat on the counter not far away.  “I’m not ready to leave yet.”

Melissa looked around at the gathering of adrenaline-fueled werewolves in the room, then the less-than-perky humans of the pack.  She bit at her lip as she looked back at Talia.  “All I’ve got left is the living room... Kyle took Isaac’s room and he’s got the air mattress in Scott’s room, and...”

“That’s fine,” Talia assured her.  She was used to far worse than a rug on a wood floor in front of a fireplace.  “It’s better than fine.”

Melissa looked to Chris.  “And my Security Guru says...”

“For tonight,” said the hunter.  “They don’t know where you are.  Tomorrow... we’ll figure out what to do about the kids at my place.”  He gave a somewhat dismissive wave and exchanged a glare with Derek.  Talia noted the pair avoided each other and knew she needed to ask.  Just... not today.  Today had been as close to perfect as it could have been and she didn’t want to find out anything that might disturb the sense of hope she felt in Melissa’s territory.  The pack she could feel the boundaries of was new, but it was solid, it could only get stronger; the last thing Talia wanted to hear today were the reasons why her son held it back.  

“Yay...” said Stiles, slumping lower over his arms.  “Another sleepover.  I got dibs on the table.”

Stilinski’s eyebrows inched up and Melissa smiled broadly.  “You heard that, right?”

Stilinski nodded.  “That was... permission.”  

“Ohmygodyouguys.” Stiles thumped his head against the table.  “Go _away_.”

“Talia, mi casa es su casa,” said Melissa.  “I’ll just go get some extra blankets.”  Talia smirked as she realized that particular not-seventeen-year-old had found an added bonus to the arrangement, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out who.  Stilinski put the last fresh cup of coffee in Chris’ hand and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Drive safe.  Someone will check in with you in the morning,” he said.  Isaac and Cora suddenly had a bad case of the giggles and Stiles developed a nervous twitch that sent his head repeatedly into the table.  Talia bit her lip and carefully slid her hand over to cushion the boy’s efforts at giving himself a headache.  Derek loomed over Stiles’ shoulder briefly, ducking his head to say something to him.  Talia looked at her son, a bit surprised by what she heard.  Derek backed up to the counter again and Stiles stilled over the table.  Then he sat up, seemed to assess the room and wake up a little more.  

“Nevermind.  I got the couch,” he announced.  It earned him a scowl from Cora, and made the sheriff look in on the kitchen from where he stood at the door still talking with Chris.  Talia looked over her shoulder at Derek, not surprised to see the barely controlled grin on his face.

 

*0*0*


	12. Chapter 12

*0*0*

It was far too early to be awake after the late night before.  The alarm went off, heralding Casey's second day back on the job.  Melissa tugged him back into bed for ten minutes.  The kids had impromptu sleepovers all the time lately, but the parents had to be back in their own beds by daylight.  Sneaking in _his_ house was easy, but sneaking back into her own house, past a couple of boys who heard _every_ tiny thing?  All but impossible.  Before winter break had started, Melissa and Casey stuck to daytime romps while the kids were at school, because that's what adults on accidentally-synced vacations did.  This was better.  Ten minutes late wouldn't get Casey fired.  They curled up together, awake and drowsy and comfortable, with no rushing out the door.

"You know, I'm really sorry I screwed up the whole solidarity thing with Stiles," Melissa said.  She really was, too.   "But at the same time..."

She felt Casey smile against the back of her neck and had to stifle a laugh as he lifted a hand to tickle her ribs.

"Can't say that I'm all that broken up about giving him the couch, either," he said.  His chin settled at her shoulder and she felt him shrug.  "He's got bigger things to worry about.  Otherwise I'm really not sure he'd be on speaking terms with me.  I always figured that one was worth at least a three day vow of betrayed silence though."

The teenager's theatrics were always amusing on some level, even when Melissa wanted to throttle him on occasion and she had no trouble believing it.  "See? It probably worked out best this way.  We should have made up a monster a week ago instead."

Casey scoffed and his arms tightened around her. "Don't try it. After going through damn near that whole book of Chris’, I'm pretty sure all the monsters _were_ made up until they took someone's head off."

Melissa cringed at the image he probably hadn't meant to conjure.  "Uhmm.  I'm making a rule," she announced.  "No talk of monsters or decapitation in bed.  None.  Ever."

"Got it," agreed Casey.  Melissa was pretty sure though that they both started wondering about the decapitated body found by the train tracks not long ago.  She let out a frustrated sigh and smacked the covers back, her post-alarm-clock stolen time gone.

"Okay. You need to go to work," she said.  He leaned up, kissed her cheek, and made his way out of bed.  

"Yeah, I need to take a look at that Benton suicide again, maybe run it by Chris..."

"Hey!" Melissa pointed at him accusingly.  "I am still in bed. No talk..."

"Right, sorry!"  Casey still grinned as he searched around for his clothes.  For the sake of sneaking in a little more time, he dragged her out of bed and into the shower, and twenty minutes later she saw him off to work with a kiss at the door.  They were out of their brief teenager stage and right on into the more comfortable adult one.  Melissa liked it, and she liked the idea of getting used to it even better.  She got a fresh pot of coffee brewing to wake the boys, and sat down with tea for herself.

 

*0*0*

 

Not long after Casey left, Kyle showed up in the kitchen.  He didn't look like he had a very good night’s sleep.  Melissa grinned into her tea; she had slept fine.

"Mornin'," she greeted.  Kyle looked at her, expression flat.

"So was that Stilinski or Peter who stayed over?" he asked.  Melissa's smile disappeared.

"You're in _my_ kitchen," she said, as quiet as she could get away with because she knew there were people in the living room who could hear every word from the kitchen.  "I bought this house, I keep it running, and last I checked, you didn't even have to pay child support.  So you think you can be civil under my roof?"

"Excuse me for the confusion," said Kyle dryly.  "I've only been introduced to one boyfriend, the other guy is just a second-rate cop we had to carry for a year."

"If you wake up Stiles with this, I'm letting you get your ass _handed_ to you by a teenager," said Melissa.  She shook her head and tried to put the man on ignore as he got his coffee.  Then he sat down at the table across from her.

"Sorry," he muttered.  "It's not my business."

"Damn straight," Melissa replied.  "Hasn't been for a long time.  If that's why you're still in town, I could have told you weeks ago you're barking up the wrong tree."

"No," said Kyle.  "I'm still in town because I keep getting answers like the other day.  Misdirection and lies.  You let my kid date the niece of a serial killer, a kid who tried to blow up my team. You're dating a dead guy, but oh, no, wait: that was just a lie to keep me from finding out the sheriff left town to save his kid from some fight club that needed fresh blood.  For godsakes even that sounds made up, but the kid made a report, and Hale verified everything.  I can't prove a damn thing anywhere."

Melissa listened patiently, waiting until he stopped on a sigh.

"So what I'm hearing is that you won't be moving on the guy who kidnapped two kids," she said.

"Hale's over 21.  Adult," said Kyle, "But yes.  I can't get a solid case on this.  I could hold him 24 hours and, what?  Make him mad?"  He shook his head.  "I _am_ looking into it, it just doesn't look promising."

Melissa was honestly surprised by the frustration she heard from him.  "Thank you for not dismissing it then," she said.  

“I can’t do anything though,” said Kyle.  “I can’t get a straight answer from anyone.  Not even my own kid.”

“The kid has no reason to believe in you at all, Kyle,” said Melissa.  She shrugged and shook her head, tried to soften the hard truth with an apologetic presentation.  “You know it just as well as I do.  Whining about it won’t change that.  Staying here, hoping he’ll miraculously come around?  Come on.  You’re investigating his ex-girlfriend.  On ridiculous charges.  You think she hasn’t told him that?”

“I didn’t know she was his...” Kyle shook his head.  “She’s dangerous. Her family history...”

“This is why, Kyle.  This.”  Melissa kept her voice quiet and even, glanced at the living room but then focused on her ex.  “You don’t trust us.  You don’t even _like_ us, let alone our friends.  Yet you’re here.  For what?”

“I think my family’s in danger,” Kyle said, very sincerely.  “I’m just trying to figure it out.”

Melissa sighed and shook her head.  “While I can appreciate what you think you’re trying to do, I don’t think Scott can.  He’s got very different definitions of the word family.  You’re his father, but Stiles is his _brother_.  You figure out the rest.”

Kyle sat there, looking at his coffee mug like he might have just had his heart crushed.  Melissa tried not to think about it.  “You want to get back in on your kid’s good graces, show him you’re worth the effort.  Short of that, maybe just treat him like a human being, not some stupid kid.”

“I’m not dropping my investigations because they make you or him uncomfortable,” said Kyle.  “I’ve got a job to do.”

“I don’t expect you to,” said Melissa.  She shrugged.  “Maybe just try not to treat his friends like criminals when you’re around him.  Cook dinner maybe.  I dunno, figure out how to be a _dad_ instead of an _agent_ when you’re here at least?”

The quiet that followed was interrupted by the scratch of claws against the floor.  Melissa looked toward the living room and saw a very large black wolf moving toward her.  Despite the size, the wolf was a little rougher looking, thinner and leaner than the wolf that had come back from Tahoe with Stiles.  The wolf leaned her shoulder against Melissa’s leg and stared over the tabletop at Kyle.  The man snorted.

“I still can’t believe Stilinski bought the kid a wolf,” he said.  Melissa choked on her tea.  Kyle didn’t seem to notice and took the dog’s arrival, somehow, as the end of conversation.  Melissa set a tentative hand to the wolf’s neck in a silent show of appreciation.  Kyle gulped his coffee and stood to leave.

“I’ve got the night shift,” Melissa told him.  “Try not to break anything you can’t fix while I’m gone.”

He accepted the request with a nod and headed for the door.  The wolf - _Talia? Had to be._ \- set her chin on Melissa’s knee briefly.  When Kyle was gone, she turned and quietly left for the living room again.  Melissa followed and sat down in the chair.  She was amused to find Stiles asleep on pillows on the floor, pinned between Derek’s wolf and the couch.  Cora, still in her street clothes but tucked under a blanket, was up on the couch behind them.  Talia looked from them to Melissa and back, the wolf somehow seeming to grin, before she turned away and jumped up into the papasan chair in the corner to supervise.

Melissa felt something tug at her head and her heart.  She couldn’t quite figure it out, but it was just a feeling in her gut that hadn’t gone away for a few weeks now.  She had herself her own little pack. Sure, that was fun to say out loud, but she wasn’t as strong as her son or Derek.  She saw strength in Talia even; to just keep going for so long, she had to have been so much stronger once.

Melissa and Casey and Chris had agreed to work together to protect their kids, they _called_ it a pack because of the werewolves among them.  Chris said it was something the kids would understand and respond to.  Melissa wasn’t sure Chris had known what he was talking about.  She and Casey certainly hadn’t a clue then.  Now, Melissa realized, she was beginning to get a clearer picture.  

They really had a Pack.  A real one, that was more than just family, and it had gotten so much bigger than Melissa’s little family could have been.  Family is just blood, or sometimes, like Stiles’ thorough adoption of Scott years ago, born by choice.  Pack was different, stronger, born of faith and belief in each other, even on top of family connections and power.  She could feel it even if it wasn’t tangible, couldn’t quite be gotten at.  Melissa suddenly wasn’t sure how to possibly handle calling herself the boss of something that much... _more_.  If she had known what she was walking in to at the time, she wouldn’t have.  No way, no how.  The gradual realization since then though helped a lot.  

She caught the wolf on the chair across from her staring at her, bright blue eyes appraising.  Melissa smiled.  She had survived a divorce, she had survived nursing school, and night school, and Scott and, god help her, she had survived _years_ of the Stilinski boys.  She might not know what she was doing, but she could figure out what she didn’t already know as she came to it.  It wasn’t _her_ pack, it was _their_ pack.  Three seperate groups that merged on occasion to share space, like a family.  She couldn’t let them all down. 

 

*0*0*


	13. Chapter 13

*0*0*

They had a plan.  It was a hastily arranged one, but it was a plan.  The girls had agreed to help with absolutely no hesitation and they weren't in any danger - they weren't wolves, why would they be? - so Derek wasn't expecting trouble.  That, apparently, is where he made the mistake.

Lydia and Allison and Danny - all three members of what Stiles had earlier rather enviously referred to as the _Banished Brigade_ \- waited at the front entrance of the mall.  The _plan_ had called for just the two girls to go to the mall.  The idea was not to show off every individual member of the pack for the people who might be stalking Stiles.  But if Danny really, really wanted to go shopping with Lydia Martin, fine.  Derek got over it.  Stiles grumbled about stereotypes and Scott helpfully countered that Danny was just worried about the girls, which caused Stiles to again ramble about stereotypes and the dangers of not assuming Allison _Argent_ was a closet-feminist like Lydia.  They had parked at the back of the lot and had a long walk up to the doors, Derek's attention on the twins rather than the others.  

Allison caught Scott's approach and took that as the cue to go inside.  Ethan pounced on Danny one last time before the guy's dangerous shopping mission, Aiden surprised Lydia with an apparently disabling kiss, and Allison removed herself from the awkward situation entirely.  By the time Derek caught up to the twins, Allison had herded the other two inside.  Stiles recognized that Derek had his back up about something and stuck to his shoulder, waved Scott with them instead when Scott tried to follow Allison and the others.  Scott seemed to realize it was a pack thing and hung back to let Derek handle his own crew.  The twins waited patiently by their bikes for their annoyed new alpha to corner them.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Dropping them off," said Ethan.

"We had nothing else to do," added Aiden.  The twins were defensive, Aiden more offended than his brother at being so obviously sidelined.

"Do I really have to tell you why this was a bad idea?" Derek asked.  Ethan frowned, glancing at his brother reluctantly.  Aiden nodded.

"Yes, because _we_ want to help.  We shouldn't be involving them.  They're not a part of it," he said.  Stiles blinked at him.

"Yes they are," he said.  Derek narrowed his eyes at the interruption but Stiles didn't care.  "This hits all of us.  They're not wolves, so they're safer maybe -if they don't get caught _hanging out_ with wolves- but they're still _pack_."

"Your little show just announced that to the world," Derek added.

"Yeah, that was kind of the idea," replied Aiden.  "Everybody else can leave them alone."

Stiles looked like he wanted to throttle the wolf who had just painted a territorial target on Lydia.  He restrained himself.  Derek ignored him.

"You're who I'm worried about," he said, pushing at Aiden's shoulder to make the posturing stop.  The admission threw even Stiles off for a moment and the three stared at Derek uncertain, like they weren't sure when the aliens had traded him out for a kinder, gentler clone.  Derek set his jaw and resumed his more familiar glare.  "Trust me, from what my mom said last night, Hutch and Mark would leave town in a heartbeat if they could get their hands on the two of you.  Especially since Mark's seen Ethan."

A light bulb clicked on for Stiles, but the twins didn't seem to make the connection.  "Come on guys.  You're twins.  They just spent six years _dissecting_ Talia for hunter-science and the betterment-of-technology.  You don't see the problem?"

"Yeah, I do.  They never should have been allowed to _do_ that," said Ethan.

"Way to miss my point," said Stiles.  "Think Nazi Germany, all the weird stuff they did in the internment camps.  Their little evil hearts went pitter-pat whenever they got their hands on twins.  Why?  Because you run a test on one, then have their identical genetic clone for a _control group._ "

Ethan backed up a step.  Aiden crossed his arms, blocking Stiles out.  But they were thinking.  Derek nodded.

"That's why you're benched for this," he said.  "We're not risking it.  I won't trade you off for my family.  I shouldn't even be talking to you right now."

Ethan nodded and looked to his brother.  "We'll stay out of it," he promised.

"Just for right now," said Derek.  "You're still as in it as the rest of us."

"Fine," said Aiden.  The twins were surprised but seemed to trust that Derek meant it.  "But anything with Lydia gets run by me first."

"Do you know how hard she would _kill_ you if she heard you say that?" Stiles tried to keep his eyes from rolling out of his head.  Aiden ignored him.

"We'll be at home," he said.  He and Ethan reached for their helmets.  "Keep us in the loop."

Derek nodded his promise.  He steered Stiles toward where Scott waited by the entrance.

"So not fair," muttered Stiles.  Derek raised an eyebrow.  Stiles pointed back toward the twins.  "They'd be better bait.  They can at least defend themselves."

Derek hid a grin.  "You do alright with what you've got."

 

*0*0*

 

The mall on a Christmas-vacation afternoon was not Stiles' favorite place to be.  It brought up awkward memories of trying to go shopping for formals.  He knew Lydia better now, had more or less come to terms with his long term plans in that department being _very_ long term.  It was different now.  He _looked_ at her different.  Still would drop everything and run to Vegas the second Lydia _lost her mind_ and he could move in to ask...  

But in the meantime, he could look at her and see all the smart stuff she did, the strength and grace she could show under pressure while he felt like he was flailing around.  Stiles saw the perfect strawberry blonde hair and the perfect... Well, everything else.  And the absolutely frustrating determined independence.  He saw a full picture now.  What still bugged him was just how far away he was from being in the picture at all.  And the mall was Lydia's element, her world, and he was so totally trespassing.  He was literally following her around in it like a stalker while the girls found a suitable werewolf wardrobe for Talia.

What was worse was that he was trespassing as freaking bait and that was just a little on the nerve-wracking side.

"I get the whole decoy thing," Stiles said, poking at a set of fluffy handcuffs in Spencer's Gifts. "But... Wouldn't it just be easier to sit in one spot to do it?  Like the food court.  Good place to people-watch and be watched."

"Except nobody just goes to the food court," said Scott.  "The shopping happens.  Then the food court."

"Have we shopped enough yet?" asked Stiles.  Scott put something from one of the shelves in his hand, snickering too much to explain.  Stiles frowned at it, stared at it, then promptly shoved it back on the shelf before someone noticed him with it.  He shoved Scott with his shoulder, already distracted looking for good retaliation material.

The problem with being a virgin in a Spencer's gift shop was knowing what he was looking at before he picked it up to read about it.  The internet was for porn, but that didn’t mean much in an adult joke shop.  And about the time he finally found something to get back at Scott, Derek showed up at the end-cap and startled him.  Stiles fumbled the box of edible underwear, dropped it, and gave up.  He kicked it behind himself and tried to look like he hadn't been the one to pull it from the shelf.

Derek lifted an eyebrow and was definitely judging Stiles' tastes in toys.  

"What?" Stiles said, defensive. "Not like I knew what it was."

"Do you know what _anything_ in this place is?" said Scott, startling him as he picked up what Stiles had dropped and put it back.

"T-shirts," said Stiles.  He nodded, proud of the few things he did know.  "And beer hats.  And fuzzy handcuffs."

Derek's stony expression seemed to crumble and he turned away to go laugh somewhere else.  Stiles grinned, too surprised by the smile to be offended.  He felt his ears go slightly red as he remembered seeing Derek in handcuffs almost a _thousand_ times so far, most always _because_ of Stiles, and he realized unexpectedly why he knew what the fuzzy versions were for.

"Oh dear god."

 

*0*0*

 

"Okay. Best pizza. We can just go to the food court next time," said Scott.  His mouth was too full for Stiles to understand half of it but he figured he got the gist.

"Told you," he said. He sat back in his chair, like a normal human being, instead of cramped over a tiny plate on the table.  Stiles was distracted though, more intent on finding familiar faces in the crowd than the calzone the size of his head sitting on the plate in front of him.  He nudged Derek with his knee under the table.

"Have you seen _anyone_ from Tahoe since we got here?" asked Stiles.  Derek shook his head.

"Just you," he replied.

“Maybe we should go people-watch at Deaton’s since that’s where we ran into them before,” said Stiles.  He stabbed his pizza with a plastic fork.  They had been there for an hour, keeping tabs on the girls via text to make sure they were okay, and the waiting was getting to him.

“We know Hutch knows where you live,” said Scott.  “He told you that.  We know he thinks you know where Talia is.  We just don’t know where he is.  So if he really meant it that he thinks you’ve got something of his, he’s going to be following you.  Which means you have to be somewhere that’s actually follow-able.”

“Yeah, I _get_ it.  But there’s less people at Deaton’s,” complained Stiles.  One of the tines broke off the plastic fork.  Derek looked up at him from his own tray of food.

“If you are just going to mutilate that, cut it in half and Scott and I will split it,” said Derek.  Stiles huffed and pushed the tray away.  Derek and Scott exchanged a look over the abandoned pizza, neither of them worried about it going anywhere without them.  Scott elbowed Stiles in the arm.

“Dude, are you okay?” he asked.

“No.”  He shook his head and shrugged.  “I dunno.”  He just wanted his life back.  The one where he didn’t have to stare at strangers and wonder if they were the hunters out to destroy what Stiles was quickly coming to think of as family.  He was surrounded by people, making noise, clanking plastic trays on metal tables... oh, _shit_.  This was not allowed at the mall.

“Someone talk,” he said quickly.  “Help...”

“What?” Scott leaned forward to try to make eye contact and Stiles latched on to the idea so fast, initiating a staring contest in record time.

“I just need something else to think about, okay?  Anything.  At all.”

“Uh...” Scott’s mental capacity for subject matter went blank the moment Stiles really, really needed the worst the guy could have given him.  Derek set a hand at Stiles’ neck at the back of his shirt collar and pulled his attention from Scott, like he had been practicing or something, smooth and calm and instantly super effective.  His hand didn’t move from where it rested and he twisted away from the table to face Stiles more directly.  Stiles mirrored him and they sat with their knees and shoes touching, the two of them locked in a brand new staring contest.

“Here’s your something else to think about,” said Derek, quiet so Stiles had to work to listen.  “I’m going to take a walk.  Check on the girls.  And see if I can pick up on anything closer to them, alright?  I’ll be back in a little while.  Until then, eat your food.”

“But I can’t, I’m not-” Stiles stopped when Derek gave him a small tug to get him to pay attention.

“Just eat anyway.  I’m going to go watch, it’s a small mall and I’ll be right back,” he said.  Stiles nodded, mechanical and trying to sort through what all Derek said.  Since they were still leaned in close, Derek moved in a little closer and brushed a kiss over the healing cuts at Stiles’ brow.  Then he stood, leaving what was left of his food with them, and walked away.  Stiles blinked after him.  Well.  That had him thinking about something else.  The panic pulled back.  He very slowly turned to lean against the table, his face showing open confusion.  Scott stared at him.  Stiles pointed a finger distractedly in the direction that Derek had gone, his eyes still tracking him.

“Was... uh... was that a pack thing?” he asked.  Scott shook his head quickly and Stiles nodded.   “No.  Definitely not.  Not a pack thing.  Okay.”

Scott stayed quiet, a slow smirk replacing the shock as he blatantly listened to Stiles’ breathing and stress ease off.  Stiles didn’t have the will to glare at him, his mind definitely back to a much happier track than the crowded mall.

“Are you better now?” asked Scott.  Stiles nodded.  He pulled his plate back and tried stabbing at the food again.  

“I’m just gonna think about that for awhile,” he said. 

 

*0*0*


	14. Chapter 14

*0*0*

 

The last thing Talia expected when Melissa had said she would send the girls shopping for new clothes was that the girls would return with _suitcases_ full of new clothes.  And a laptop computer.  And a cell phone.  The laptop had surprised even Melissa and when they asked about it, Derek nodded toward a hiding Stiles and said “He needed something to do at the mall.”

Melissa looked over at Stiles, who leaned against the back of the couch behind where Scott sat at the end of it.  “Retail therapy?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” said Stiles.  “More like I could only sit at the food court for so long before I started going a little crazy so we tapped into what was left of Derek’s share of the fight money.  The girls wouldn’t just freaking _leave_...”

“That’s not how shopping works, sweetie,” said Lydia.  “You do _not_ rush a master at work.”  She dipped into another bag and held up a dress for Talia’s approval before laying it in the suitcase of clothes being kept.  The girls had expensive tastes and Talia stared at the pile of carefully folded necessities that was so quickly adding up.

“We didn’t know what you liked,” said Allison to Talia, apologetic.  “But when Derek said you were a lawyer, we just went for the look.”

“Within reason,” added Lydia.  “We didn’t break the bank.  But you look like you’d fit in with Allison and Chris at their condo.  If you decide to renew your licensing later, well, then you and I have an appointment with the wonderful city of San Francisco, where _they_ know how to _shop_.”

Unable to hide the smile - something almost foreign to her life that she had done so much in the past day that her cheeks ached - Talia just shook her head.  She had power-shopped before Lydia was born and hadn’t forgotten it.  She wasn’t sure she would be going back to it, but the girls had set her up very, very well.  She still couldn’t find her voice to thank them for it, either, and sat quietly to let Lydia and Cora dig through bags and approve the purchases.

“And I was thinking...” said Allison.  She was _still_ thinking about it, if the assessing look on her face was anything to go by.  “They’re looking for someone who looks like you...”

Lydia nodded, settling her hands in her lap to switch focus to her other area of expertise.  “What she’s meaning to ask is, have you ever thought about going blonde?  Something a little less dark, maybe some red...”

Cora looked up from the floor where she sat with a Macy’s bag in her lap, blinking in surprise.  She clearly thought that was the worst idea to have ever come from anyone’s mouth.  Talia felt Melissa studying her from the couch and looked over at her, the woman in the work scrubs and worn sweater amid the piles of empty, high-end clothing store bags.  Chin in her hand, one elbow resting on her knee, Melissa reached out and brushed at Talia’s long bangs.

“It could work,” Melissa said.  “Maybe it would help keep Hutch off the trail awhile, too.”

Talia huffed, feeling guiltily overwhelmed suddenly.  She motioned toward the clothes.  “He would not expect this.  Any of this.”

“Good!” said Lydia.  She pulled out her phone and started texting.  “This doesn’t leave this room, but my mother made a killing as a hairdresser when she was going to school.  You’ll be a new woman by tonight, completely and totally off hunter-radar.”

Talia gawked.  Melissa grinned and shrugged.  “She doesn’t hear the word ‘no’ much.”

“It’s a dirty word,” Lydia agreed, still focused on her phone.  Despite herself, Talia almost laughed.

“Then I’ll consider blonde for awhile,” she said.

 

***

 

The meeting at Stilinski’s place that night had gone a little better by Chris’ reckoning.  They were still stuck using Derek and Stiles to help draw out another meeting with Hutch, and Stiles was about as happy with that arrangement as could be expected, but he agreed to it.  Only on the condition that they post a _Wolf Found_ poster at Deaton’s in case Hutch really did go back.  And, he said, no one was allowed to tell anyone that had been his idea, ever.  Apparently the kid _did_ know where the lines were for regular rules of polite society, he was just really selective about using them.  It was nice to know he thought twice about calling someone’s mother a dog in print, even if she was a werewolf.  Derek Hale was present for the conversation, along with the Stilinskis and Scott, and he signed off on the idea.  Talia was still hiding at Melissa’s house, with the twins and Isaac on watch.  Melissa was working the late shift and had to leave before the others.  It took five minutes for Stiles to print off a flyer and less than two for her to tape it to the window beside the clinic door on her way to work.

They had a plan.  Considering they had borrowed the bones of it from something Derek and Scott had already put in place, it was workable, but not perfect.  Chris accepted it for now and planned on making up a lot of it as they went along.  Chris knew nothing about the kind of hunters who didn’t follow the Code.  When he found out his sister and father had both broken from the beaten path, he knew all he wanted to know about it and left.  He could protect who he could protect from his own little corner of the world, and he knew exactly what he was capable of with the hunters he still trusted.  It would be a lot easier to stay in one place with the local sheriff as one of those few hunters.  Chris didn’t have to try to save the world anymore, Beacon Hills was more than enough to work with.  With the nemeton awake again, it would only get worse.  The last thing they needed was a hunter convention in his backyard for the long term.

Chris waited until dark to take Scott home from the Stilinskis’ and pick up Talia and Cora.  Derek would stay with the sheriff and Stiles.  Melissa said Peter had his own projects that he was working for her, - a comment that made everyone unhappy,- which took him off of the list of immediate concerns for the Hale family.  Since none of the pack except Talia, Derek and Stiles had ever seen Hutch or whoever he may have brought with him, that effectively put the rest of Melissa’s pack in a holding pattern.  And Talia Hale at Chris Argent’s house, because it was the _last place_ anyone would look for a werewolf.

“Cora’s really unpredictable right now,” Scott said.  The kid was handing out last-minute advice on the drive back to his house.  “She’s really impulsive usually, and now she’s protecting her mom...”

“I’m not the one we have to worry about,” Chris reminded him.  “I’m the one letting them stay at my _house_.”

“I know,” said Scott.  Considering how many times he had pulled a gun on the kid, Chris found Scott’s faith in him both annoying and endearing if he was honest with himself.  He shook his head as Scott carried on.  “I’m just... if something happens, Cora’s going to be the most trouble.”

“No, I’m pretty sure if something happens and Cora’s in any kind of trouble, Talia’s the one I’ll be worried about,” said Chris.  “You look at her and see somebody’s mom, Scott.  I see a woman who held her own as a lab-rat all this time.  That is one tough mother and I’d take on two pissed-off teenagers to Talia Hale any day of the week.”

Scott gave that its due consideration.  “Oh.”

Then they were at the house and Scott hurried inside.  When he didn’t send Talia out immediately afterward, Chris reluctantly turned off his SUV and got out.  He knocked on the front door, feeling stupid because they all knew he was there.  Chris decided the knock was a good warning and opened the door.  It opened into someone who had been standing behind it, juggling luggage, and Chris ducked inside quickly, apologizing.  Talia looked back at him, a surprising honey-blonde in branded, expensive clothes, and she had been outsmarted by trying to trail the two carry-on bags on their wheels.  Rather than sort out how to get them both to the car without the neighbors being suspicious of a small woman _carrying_ two luggage bags and a purse big enough for an iPad.

“Sorry,” she said.  “I had it and then I knocked it off balance...”

“Uh... I can... let me get these to the truck for you,” suggested Chris.  Talia stood up and passed the offending luggage off to someone who had used it in it’s modern interpretation.  He looked at Talia as she held open the door for him.  

“You look different,” he said.  “The haircut and...”

“Yes?  Well I feel different, so that’s probably the way to put it,” said Talia.   _Different_ didn’t mean comfortable apparently but she wasn’t dismissing it.

“You look good,” Chris offered, surprising even himself.  “Nothing like what anyone would be looking for.”

“That’s the idea,” said Cora, helpful with her sarcasm but short on the patience required for volunteering to help move luggage.

It was very weird for Chris to play valet for werewolves.  He was having a weird week, on the end of a weird year.  And given the things Chris had grown up with in a family with a legacy, "weird" was a pretty strong word.  He had witnessed things in the last week alone that he had absolutely no explanation for; not miracles, just things that challenged his worldview.

Chief among those experiences was looking at a badly damaged werewolf and seeing only a woman in trouble.  There were differences, physiological, chemical, biological and mental differences between the two things.  After helping his terrified wife take her own life rather than face those changes, Chris held very tightly to his refusal to call them human, to not see those differences.  Allison could do what she wanted, think what her heart told her about the wolves, but Chris refused.  It would mean his wife had died for nothing, and he couldn't accept that.

But he couldn't pull back a thought, either.  What had happened to Stiles in Nevada was a poison; Chris had seen the rules reversed, seen a kid where there should have been a wolf.  Now he saw the humans where he should have seen a wolf.

It wasn't that Talia Hale was beautiful that hit Chris so hard then.  It wasn't that she had been irrevocably hurt.  Seeing the woman struggle in the hallway with luggage - where the hell did she even get this shit? - and gravity, what he saw _was_ human; strength and frailty and pain.

And the damned realization wouldn't leave.  He was still off his game when he got them loaded in the SUV.

 

*0*0*


	15. Chapter 15

*0*0*

 

The Argent home was a very nice, secure apartment.  Floors above them and below and neighbors all around.  Talia saw witnesses, eyes and ears that might make the hunters think twice about approaching it.  She towed one suitcase behind her into the hall, Cora following with the other.  They both looked around, studying the space, suspicious more than curious.  Chris secured the door behind them and stepped past them.  He wasn't used to playing host and offered up no tour, only a direct path to the room they would be staying in.

"So this is Allison's room. Completely safe. Dual-pane windows and no useful ledges outside them for stalkers to get in from," said Chris as he waved them into the space.  Talia looked at him, questioning his mention of stalkers.  He shrugged.  "She dated Scott.  I saw him fall from the roof near her window more than once and factored that in when we moved."

Talia politely hid a smile and tucked her bags into the closet.  Cora dropped her bag in with them and closed the door.  She crossed her arms and said to Chris, "I hope you don't expect us to stay in here all the time."

Talia frowned at her daughter's lack of grace, tucked her arm around Cora's shoulders.  It was clear that Cora didn't trust Chris either.  She pressed a kiss to Cora's temple and shushed her

"Chris is safe," Talia told her, voice soft so as not to carry.  "He's Melissa's pack and put himself at risk to help.  You can tone it down, girl."

The surprised look on Chris' face said he had heard.  Cora rolled her eyes and nodded shortly.

"Sorry," she said.

"It's okay," said Chris.  "And I don't care where you go in the house, just stay out of my room.  The bathroom's one door down.  The weapons are in the library.  If something happens, meet me there. Other than that, it is what it is."

"And the kitchen?" asked Talia.  Chris pointed back the way they had come.

"Up the hall, near the door," he said.  Talia nodded and moved past him in the doorway.

"Then how about some coffee?" she said.  Chris looked from where Cora stood in Allison's room to where Talia moved toward the kitchen.  He shrugged and reached in to shut the door.

"Are you coming out?" Talia heard him ask Cora.  A moment later, Chris pulled the door closed before following her to the kitchen.  The apartment was newer than Melissa's house, so everything was built to be easily found.  Talia already had the brew started by the time Chris showed up.

"The TV is pretty straightforward," he said. "I'll be in the library-"

"I understand your history," said Talia, talking over his efforts to leave.  She couldn't stay in his home in good conscience without getting a few answers first.  "But I would like to know why my family is a threat to you.  I don't expect I can fix it, but I would like to know."

Chris stayed where he was, surprised by the blunt question.

"Aside from my natural distrust of _werewolves_?" asked Chris, with only the faintest hint of sarcasm.  Talia nodded.  "Derek won a fight with my wife.  Now she's dead.  That doesn't go away."

Talia studied him, her own expression darkened.  "I’ve already told you that I met your sister and your father," she told him.  "Multiple times."

"I'm sorry," said Chris.  The response was almost immediate, surprisingly sincere, and certainly not something he had dared to say at Melissa’s kitchen table around witnesses.  Talia nodded acceptance.

"I healed," she said.  "What was harder to get through was Kate's gloating.  She spoke many times of who was in the house with me, named off my husband, my sisters and brothers, my children and theirs.  My very last memories of them were the assurances that she had killed them all.  She had no right to that.  Their names should never have crossed her lips after what she had done."

"I wasn't a part of that," said Chris.  "Any of it.  I wasn’t even in California back then."  He didn’t seem to be defending himself.  It was more a tolerance, an apparent understanding for what Talia was trying to get at.  Talia nodded, not dismissing his honesty but merely accepting it.  

"You’re nothing like them.  I mention this because the pain is there.  It happened.  I can't erase it," she said.  "But I am in the damnable position now of having to trust you, her brother, with my life and with my children's.  Because the people I trust tell me I should trust you."

Chris met her gaze evenly, seemed to believe her.  "I don't know if this will mean anything at all to you," he said.  "But you have my word that you're safe here.  Cora is safe here.  And regardless of whether I can respect your son or not, I am doing my best to keep you, him, and everyone else in the pack alive."

Talia had no reservations about cheating, listening for Chris' heartbeat and refusing to trust his words alone.  She heard no trace of the lie, no hesitance in his promise.  Whether he and Cora got along, Chris would look out for the girl.  Talia nodded.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome," said Chris.  He was somewhat more reluctant to add, "I'm sure you'd do the same for Allison."

"Without hesitation," said Talia.  Talia was no longer an alpha, but the awareness of territorial boundaries would never leave her.  She didn't think Chris wanted to hear the explanation of what it meant to be pack, or that his daughter was definitely a part of a very large one.   He was too.  It would just take awhile for him to understand that for himself.

"The coffee's ready," Talia reported.  She still stood away from the pot, across the kitchen from it near the opposite counter in the large space.  The coffee maker beeped seconds later to announce the same thing.  A hint of a grin crossed Chris' face.  He finally let himself into his own kitchen and moved to show Talia where the mugs were.  She couldn't help but notice when the infamous hunter Chris Argent turned his back to her to get into the cupboards.

 

*0*0*


	16. Chapter 16

*0*0*

 

The next fishing exhibition was the obvious one.  If teenagers could not be found in malls, they could be found in the woods.  Because obviously every teenager on the planet had a death wish and liked to taunt hunters who wanted them dead by providing them with the perfect opportunity to kill them and bury their bodies all in one, handy, conveniently-located, witness-free spot.  Stiles Stilinski shamelessly hid behind his werewolf companions at nearly every noise that the preserve dared to make around them.

“Okay... I _officially_ don’t like this game anymore,” said Stiles as he recovered from a twig snap that had sent him into Scott’s shoulder.

“Come on, we’ve been out here a hundred times,” said Scott.

“Remember when you came out here _looking_ for dead bodies?” added Derek.  

“Those times were _slightly_ different than this time, when I’m basically asking to _become_ a dead body,” replied Stiles.

“No, you’re asking to set up a meeting between the alpha of the territory and the hunters stupid enough to be in her territory,” said Derek.  “You’re the messenger.  People don’t shoot messengers.”

Because that was the _stupidest_ thing that had ever crossed Derek Hale’s lips, a shot rang out through the preserve.  Because this was Stiles’ life and it never wanted to just go smoothly, he was in the middle of the woods and being shot at.  He couldn’t just take a walk in the woods and expect that was all that would happen, walking and woodsing.  Never that simple.  Instead he was suddenly grabbed by the arm and dragged along as Derek and Scott took off running.

They weren't far from the Hale house and, with gunfire chasing them, that was where they ran.  Derek knew the ins and outs of the place better than the hunters.  It gave them the advantage and cover, and an escape if they needed it.  But by the time they reached it, Stiles was babying his ribs and having problems catching his breath.  And then there was Scott, who was carrying his left arm and swearing.  This was not the plan.

Stiles all but collapsed against the wall inside the house as Derek closed them in.  The gunshots at least stopped.

"Well, it worked this time," said Scott.  Derek stopped to check Scott's arm, which did not look healthy, and he pointed him toward Stiles instead.  Stiles watched them close, his eyes on the familiar-looking damage just above the tattoo bands.

"We gotta call Deaton," Stiles said. "That's wolfsbane."

Derek nodded.  He was looking Stiles over, in his space. "Yeah, I know.  Were you hit?"

"No, just my... Hey!" Stiles was surprised by a hand sneaking up under his shirt to press carefully against his cracked and aching ribs.  The pain started to ease back and he found he could breathe again.  Derek met his eyes.

"We deal with the hunters first," he said calmly.  "They leave and _then_ we can get Scott back to the clinic."

Stiles nodded.  "Right." He still looked to Scott across the hall, past Derek as the man moved away.  "You're alright, right?"

Scott hugged his arm but nodded.  “This stuff does more than sting though,” he said.  There came noise on the stairs above them and Stiles ducked aside into the entryway of what had once been the living room.  Scott and Derek moved to block the end of the staircase, relaxing when they saw Cora and Isaac tromping down.  Cora took Scott by the arm as she caught up to him, checking the hole in his shoulder.  

“Next time, dodge better,” she told him soberly.  Scott huffed and nodded.  Isaac stared, in his fascinated-by-things-that-could-maybe-kill-him way.  Stiles pointed briefly.

“No, seriously, dude, that’s going to get gross.  You won’t like it.  Not cool,” he said to Isaac, just to give him warning.  Isaac nodded.  Derek looked to Cora.

“Did you see them when you were out there?” he asked.  

“Nope,” she said.  “We stayed where we could hear you, but we got here before you, so they must have been behind us, too.”

“So we don’t know how many are out there,” said Derek.  Scott nodded toward Stiles and then looked over at Derek.  

“So you two go talk to them.  We’ll stay in here.  They won’t know how many we’ve got, either,” he said.  Derek nodded.

“You are definitely staying in here,” he said.  Half folded up by the pain in his shoulder, Scott was in agreement with that plan.  Stiles edged over to the door and looked out, his eyes searching the too-quiet treeline.  It would have been nice for at least one of them to come out for a parley, but it looked like it wasn’t going to be that easy.  

“I’ll just wait out front then,” he muttered.  Derek looked back at him, probably to yell at him for stupid ideas, so Stiles dodged out the partially-opened door before he could get in trouble.  He crossed the porch and sat down.  He was still breathing, and unlike Scott he had no dangerous holes in his body that weren’t there the day he was born.  He could handle their hunting party.

Derek surprised him and sat down next to him, quiet and not muttering about stupid ideas.  It bolstered Stiles’ confidence a little.  After a moment, Derek’s survey of the trees stopped and it was like he sat on-point, the red wolf-sight glaring straight out at where the hunters waited.

“What?” asked Stiles.  “You found them?”

Derek nodded.

“They waiting for some kind of white flag or something?” Stiles was annoyed.  “They’re the ones with the guns.  What, werewolf laser-beams are going to attack them if they cross twenty yards with no trees?”

He stood up, shrugged out of his overshirt as he went and started waving it over his head.  “I’m not yelling, assholes!”

Derek looked up at him curiously.  “What are you doing?”

“I don’t have a white flag, I have plaid.  So unless you wanna take off your shirt so I can wave it around for a truce, they can just take the hint,” said Stiles.  Derek huffed and shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“Good,” said Stiles.  “That would be distracting and distraction is _way_ up there on the list of things I don’t need right now.”

Two shapes emerged from the trees, approaching the house.  Mark and Hutch.  Stiles didn’t plan to go out to meet them, but he dropped down a few steps to keep them from nosing too close to the house.

“I really should have brought a gun,” he muttered.  “Or at least the stupid knife.  Not even armed.”

“Nope, you’ve just got me,” said Derek, still perched on the steps.  Stiles glanced back at him, not _even_ understanding how the man could be so damn calm just then.  He tried to borrow a little of it as he waited for the two hunters to show up.

“Where’s my wolf?” Hutch asked.  Derek stood up and moved down the steps and the hunters took that as their warning that they had come close enough.  Stiles pointed toward Derek.

“I have this wolf,” he said.  “The flyer showed _this_ guy.  He’s not yours.  Actually, my _dad_ bought him.  Funny story...”

“Then why are you wasting our time?” asked Mark.  Stiles stared at him.  In the overcast daylight, he realized, Mark and Hutch looked a lot alike, except one looked like he had a hippie for a hair stylist.

“You came to my town, looking for me,” said Stiles.  “ _I’m_ not wasting your time.  You are.  And you’re on somebody else’s territory.  So if you plan to stay here for any amount of time at all, you should probably check in with them.”

“We already talked to Chris Argent.  He’s out of this,” said Hutch.

“He’s not who you have to talk to,” said Stiles.  “You set something up with the actual alpha of the territory, or you’ll have problems.  We’ll all have problems.  Nobody likes to go to war in their own backyard, but those are the guys who usually win, so...”

Hutch laughed.  Mark looked just as amused.  “War?” he asked.  “Kid, I’ve seen the both of you fight.  This would be the shortest-lived war known to mankind.”

“It’s not us you have to talk to,” said Derek.  “The alpha here knows where your wolf is.  So do you want to talk to her or do you want to keep wasting time?”

“If she knows, then you know,” said Mark.  Hutch caught his arm and held him back from the slow advance.

“We don’t know,” said Stiles.  They _did_ know, and they were pissed at facing the two hunters responsible for so much of what they knew _about_ , and they couldn’t act on a single retaliatory impulse without risking everybody.  Stiles was already edgy and angry enough that he was the only one of the two who could pull off a convincing lie of that magnitude around a suspicious werewolf.  “We just know that this is the only time she’s _asking_.  So you can try taking care of this the easy way and then _Go_.   _Away_.  Or you can keep doing whatever you’ve been doing the past few days, _not_ find your wolf, and waste everybody’s time.”

“And you might want to avoid the general downtown area of Beacon Hills,” said Derek.  He was grinning.  Stiles was just a little worried.  “There’s a few posters of your faces up.  The feds are in town and very interested in talking to you.  Turns out kidnapping is a federal issue, especially when you cross state lines.”

Yep, worried.  Stiles took the slightest step back as the two hunters lost all amusement with the situation.  Derek didn’t budge.  “I suggest you talk to the alpha about your wolf.  Or just leave town quickly.”

“Fine,” said Hutch.  “Let’s try your diplomacy.  Who do we need to talk to?”

“There’s a Starbucks on 4th and Broadway.  You can meet her there tonight at six.  Might want to clean up, be presentable in public, all that.”  Stiles waved vaguely to the two men who looked like city tourists that had climbed off the center spread of GQ instead of the middle of the muddy woods.  “And leave the weapons in the truck.”

Derek tilted his head, his grin still in place.  Mark seemed to freeze up a little.  Whatever Derek heard, Mark heard it too.

“That’s the sheriff’s car driving up,” he said.  He pointed toward the road that had once been a driveway, now hidden by the trees, and waved slightly.  “You and your friends might want to leave now if you expect to make your appointment on time.”

Stiles was nearly delirious at the news, a big smile hitting his face.  He looked to Hutch and gave his best effort at not-gloating.  There was nothing in his life more satisfying than seeing Mark turn tail and run for the woods.  A very close second was seeing his father’s car drive up to the house.  He left Derek to guard the porch and ran up the stairs to get Scott to the car.  Cora stood beside Scott, phone in her hand.  It was on speakerphone and his dad’s name scrolled very helpfully across the top of the screen.

“You,” Stiles said to Cora as he moved to pull Scott away from the support of the wall, “Are possibly the most brilliant woman on the planet.”  

“Aside from Lydia,” Scott pointed out, a smirk on his too-pale features.  Stiles considered it and nodded.

“Yeah, I guess.  And your mom,” he agreed.  Stiles looked back to Cora.  “Okay, so you’re at _least_ third.”

He and Scott waited around for the predicted eye-roll they had been aiming for before Stiles tugged his friend out to the car waiting outside.  Isaac and Cora followed and climbed in the backseat with Derek as Scott was tucked into the front.  Stiles stood in the open back door, contemplating how to fit a fourth person on the uncomfortable bench.

“Yeah, I guess we should have planned this one out a little better,” he said.

“Shut up and get in,” said Stilinski from the nice, comfortable, front seat.  Derek backed it up by catching Stiles' wrist and tugging.   _Yeah, so, this is really my life right now_ , thought Stiles as he ducked into the car and tried to not hit his head against the roof from Derek’s lap.  Or Derek's face, for that matter.  Isaac and Cora grinned at him.  Stiles pulled a face back.  

“Shutup,” he said.  Probably not the best choice in retaliation because even Derek started laughing then.

 

*0*0*


	17. Chapter 17

Chris was surprised to find he was the first to tell Allison the boys had been attacked in the woods.  Three days of constant communication and hyper-awareness of each other had apparently been enough, and the teenagers took what space they were allowed to achieve radio-silence.  

Chris listened as Allison passed the news along and Lydia started making phone calls.  He rolled his eyes.  

"Everyone's fine," he repeated.

"Yeah, but she's Lydia," said Allison.

"She would know before the rest of us if something went bad," Chris pointed out.  He shuffled the phone and checked over his maps again.  He didn't have much to go on, but he had three known locations the hunters were keying off of, and they had seen that the hunters obviously didn’t care about the _mall_ , which meant he could make some guesses on where they were staying.  Somewhere near the preserve, the vet's office, and the Stilinski house.  A large area, but it narrowed things down.  

"You're not her most trusted intel source, dad," Allison said.  She was quiet to not be overheard but he could hear the smile in her voice.  "She and Aiden have been discussing Derek a lot the last few days.  I think whatever bit Stiles got them too."

"Is it going to be a problem?" Chris asked.

"No, it just means she's in there verifying everything you just said with Stiles," replied Allison easily.  There was a pause and she got a little less smiley in her tone.  "What about you?  Over there with the Hales."

"They're behaving themselves," said Chris.  "Talia made breakfast this morning.  No poison."

"Ha ha," said Allison.  “Talia’s alright.”  There was a significant pause.  "It's weird is all."

"You have no idea," muttered Chris.  They had bought the new place, nothing like their other homes over the years, nothing to remind them of the hole in their family where Allison's mom should have been, and now... The Hales had a hold on Allison's room.  It was a secondary reason for banishing his daughter to Lydia's house.  "I don't really want to have to move again though, so we'll get over it."

"Yeah," Allison agreed.

"Talia and Stiles will be with me tonight when Melissa meets with the Hutchinsons," Chris said.  "And we're going to need you and Lydia down there."

"Extra eyes," Allison said, approval in her voice.  "Just say when and where."

"Drag Lydia shopping downtown around five-thirty, get some coffee around six..."

"Got it."

Chris hesitated.  "What's your take on all of this?"

“All what?” she asked.  Chris didn’t actually feel like he needed to acknowledge her question so he just kept quiet.  Allison caught on.  “I don’t know.  It’s partly our fault isn’t it?”

“ _No_?”  Chris said quickly.  How the hell had she arrived at that conclusion?  “I didn’t know about any-”

“So?  It’s on our family,” said Allison.  “This and a whole lot of other stuff.  It doesn’t matter that we didn’t know about it.  It’s on everybody.  Hunters caused it.  Now they’re trying to do it all over again on our watch.  I don’t think so.”

“I think we’re in a bit further now than just protecting the defenseless,” said Chris.  He bit the inside of his cheek, suddenly wondering if Allison was even aware.  It would serve him right if he was the only one believing in a pack that he had only started to fight his daughter’s choice in friends.

“That’s what I mean, Dad,” said Allison.  “It’s not the Hales they’re after this time.  They’re going after my friends.  It’s my... well, it’s mine.”

She wouldn’t say it to him, but it was there in front of him anyway.  Chris gave the room around him a small grin.  “Pack, Al.”

“Yeah.  I’m sorry if you don’t actually believe it-”

“No.  No, I believe it,” said Chris.  He believed it so hard lately that sometimes he swore he _felt_ it.  Instinct.   He sighed and scrubbed at the back of his head, studying the ceiling.  “You were saying they’re going after _our_ pack this time, not just the Hales’.  Melissa and Scott are in up to their necks here.  And you’re right.   They won’t leave it alone.  This meeting tonight will only make it worse.”

“I was saying that it doesn’t matter who they’re going after,” Allison corrected.  “They shouldn’t be allowed to do it.  So since we know about it now, we can stop it.”

Chris closed his eyes, somewhere between surprised and proud.  They had kept Allison out of the game too long for her to ever be a hunter, he realized.  She had somehow, despite her parents’ involvement in the angry, violent world of hunting angry, violent things, developed her own moral code that was powered by different stuff.  Allison was angry, there was no mistaking that, but it was a protective anger and not the aggression that Chris was used to operating on.  His kid was playing defense against her family’s history of offense, instigating a complete game-change in hunting.  Chris couldn’t see how it would work, but they could at least try.

 

*0*0*

 

No one was willing to let Stiles in the exam room to help Scott.  Derek had to get involved to stop him from basically giving himself a concussion if he fainted.  So Scott left the sheriff, Derek and Isaac to babysit the paranoid Stiles.  Cora snuck in with him, commenting about someone having to hold him down.  Scott didn't argue that one; even Derek had needed help and he understood why all too clearly now.  It was a draining pain, it ate at him and sapped everything from him.   Also, he was pretty certain his arm was going to cut _itself_ off at the tattoo.

It was a lot easier to procure the remedy for Scott than it had been for Derek.  Deaton had taken to keeping a wider variety of cure-alls on hand once he knew the boys were pissing off the hunters to that degree.  Scott trusted his boss and his boss didn't let him down.  Even sitting in the exam room though, his arm propped painfully up on the table, Scott refused to consider Deaton his doctor.  He was a vet.   _And_ a field-medic.  But they were different things.

"Are you ready?" Deaton asked.  Scott nodded his head.

"No," he said, just as clear a message as the nod.  Deaton raised an eyebrow, waited.  Cora stepped over from where she lurked by the door.  She stood in front of Scott and pinned his arm down to the table at the wrist and elbow.

"Go," she said.  Deaton applied the poison to the wound and Scott jumped, biting down hard on his lip until he contained the urge to yell and channeled it into a growl instead.  His eyes flashed and he glared at Cora, and she bared her teeth back.  

The pain in his arm faded enough to move and he tugged his arm from the table, sweeping Cora with it.  She tripped and he caught her, and she landed in his lap.  Something to hang on to, and she was pack.  Instinct said it would make him feel better, so Scott just held on to her, his forehead tucked into her shoulder.  Cora raised an eyebrow but closed her hands around Scott's and stayed where he put her.   It was a miniature version of the puppy piles.

After five minutes Scott still showed no interest in moving, so Cora pulled out her cellphone to pass the time.  Scott grinned, understanding suddenly why Derek didn't mind Stiles in his space.  It just felt like it was better, and there was nothing to _mind_ about it.  He snooped over her shoulder without letting go.  She flicked through the pictures on her phone.

"Woah," said Scott.  The image captured on Cora’s phone was the first clear view he had of the two hunters dogging Stiles.  He had seen Cora at the door of the Hale house but at the time had been too distracted by the pain in his arm to assume she was doing anything other than guard it.  "That was - you got pictures of them?"

"Yeah," she said.  "So we'd have something more than a sketch.  Now we have both of them."

"Send it to everybody," said Scott.  "It'll help tonight."

Cora nodded and started tapping away at the phone screen.  Scott switched his attention to her face, seeing a casual determination.

"That was really lucky," he said.  "All of us there and nobody else even thought about our phones.  Thanks."

“That’s because you’re all idiots.”  Cora actually cracked a smile but her shoulders lifted in a shrug: no big deal.  Scott shook his head and grinned.

 

*0*0*


	18. Chapter 18

Talia was, unfortunately, the only one who could help identify the hunters who might show up with Hutch.   Derek and Stiles could recognize Mark's pack, but Talia knew both groups.  They were lucky Lydia and Allison had talked her into the new hairstyle.  A pair of sunglasses was all they needed to hide her in an SUV to pull surveillance for Melissa's meeting.  She borrowed Derek's and sat in the front passenger seat with Chris, parked across the street a block away from the Starbucks.

In the back sat Derek and Stiles.  All the eggs in one basket, just in case.  They were better hidden by dark tinted windows and safer than Talia would be by a long shot.  The meeting was fifteen minutes away and Hutch and Mark showed up predictably early.  Chris was just glad he had thought to show up earlier.

"Stephens, there..." said Talia, pointing to a man who sat three tables from where the brothers had sat, "And back in the store is Mike.  So I'm thinking somewhere in town we'll find Ricky and probably Jules.  They always show up together."

"So six altogether," said Stiles.  "We can hand them their asses gift wrapped."

Chris chanced to look back in the rear view at them.  Derek cracked a smile and shook his head.

"What?  We can." said Stiles.  

"These guys don't play by the rules," Chris replied.  "Numbers won't cut it."

"We held some of ours back," Derek added.  "They more than likely did the same.  Six is what they're willing to risk around the threat of cops and Feds."

"Damn." Stiles sounded like he got the clue that time and Chris glanced back at them again.  The kid had slumped against Derek's shoulder and leaned across just enough to stare at the cafe patio up the street.  Chris decided he wasn't looking in the backseat anymore.

"I still don't get it," said Stiles after another minute.  "They've got three wolves _with_ them.  They're hunters.  Why are... I just..."

The teenager's polite-society filter seemed to kick in.  The best he could do to express whatever question was rattling in his brain was a growl.  It was rather like a puppy trying to imitate a big dog and Chris rolled his eyes.  Talia though seemed to track Stiles' moods better than Chris could and merely shrugged.

"About a year before the fire, Hutch was a bio student.  They started experimenting after Mark was bit, trying to cure him.  Hutch nearly killed him," said Talia.  Chris couldn't help it and his attention was dragged from the area around the cafe to watch Talia.  Her tone was flat, her expression a mask behind the sunglasses.  It was clear now where Derek got his version of the look, and Talia had more practice.  

"That's what they want?" Stiles asked from the backseat.  "A cure?"

"Yes, and they're a long way from it," said Talia.  "They arranged the fire with the Argents because we were three generations in one house.  They knew we were born wolves and thought that would give them a clue to the bite."

"But Mark is a wolf," said Derek, sounding blatantly confused. "He can fully shift."

"I taught him," said Talia.  "I thought then they would stop looking.  They did, somewhat.  But Hutch still works on it.  Aside from the liability, they still think the cure can be found in the older bloodlines.  The two others Mark works with were bitten, hunters just like him.  That's why they're looking for me."

Chris frowned, followed the hunters' line of thought too easily.  "And they're still negotiating because if they can't find _you_ , they can settle for your kids."

Talia glanced at him, unreadable behind the glasses.  "That's what they would think, yes.  But they're no less afraid to try it.  That's their last resort."

“But you trained them,” Chris said carefully.  “So they know you.  They’ll know what to expect from you.”

Talia nodded, lifting the sunglasses to meet Chris eye to eye.  “ _Yes_ , I trained Mark.  That’s why I asked for help going against them.  Why I trust the decisions of those I asked.”

Chris nodded quiet acceptance of that and reached out to lower the glasses back where they belonged in order to keep her hidden.  She cracked a grin and looked away.  It was quiet in the car after that, no one wanting to unsettle Talia any further.  Chris checked the clock.

"Five minutes before Melissa shows," he said.  The tension shifted and the quiet remained.

"They've got more than six," said Stiles from the back a while later.  His voice was muffled and pitched quiet enough that he was speaking to Derek.  Chris glanced back because he could practically hear the wheels turning in the kid's head.  Stiles had shifted back to his own space again but still angled against Derek's shoulder to get an easier line of sight on the Starbucks.  Derek didn't seem to mind the invasion and just nodded.

"Yeah," he said.  "More than six."


	19. Chapter 19

Predictably, the Starbucks line ran a little long.  Melissa didn't mind making them wait.  She had the pictures Cora had sent her so she knew the men were already there, had seen them when they walked in.  Chris had texted her to let her know the two they were expecting had brought back up, complete with names and a rough idea of where to find them.  The longer wait on her tea and Peter's latte, the better.  She thought about passing the time flirting in public with the uniformed sheriff, but they didn't need the distraction.  He and Peter both seemed to have picked up on one of their stalkers, their gaze occasionally sneaking to a man with a rumpled newspaper near the window.  The Nevada headline was a _big_ clue.

Back outside, Melissa checked with Peter to be sure the man was still handling it alright.  From the look on his face, he was there for a Sunday champagne brunch and _that_ was a little worrisome.

"You're sure you're okay being here?" Melissa asked.  Peter gave her a smile as they approached the table outside for their appointment.

"Oh trust me, there is absolutely _no_ place I would rather be right now," he said.

"Yeah... You just sit here and _work_ that creepy," said Melissa.  She patted his arm and sipped at her to-go cup.  Then the three of them stood at the table with Hutch and Mark.  

"Well gentlemen," Melissa said, the smile in her tone faded.  "Thanks for bothering to check-in."

Chairs scraped pavement as she, the sheriff, and Peter pulled them out to sit.  Peter had to drag his from another table and he seemed to have fun, the chair making the same noise as nails on chalkboard nice and loud for his and Mark's sensitive hearing.  He decided not to sit like a normal person, turning the chair backwards to lean on the fancy metal backrest.

Mark was clearly worried about Peter already.  Melissa smiled.

"So I hear you're looking for a wolf," she said

"Yes," said Hutch quietly.  "And we've been told you know where she is."

"Oh, we do," said Melissa.  "But here's the thing.  You don't get her back."

"I think she’s been gone long enough," added Peter.  He motioned between himself and Melissa and the sheriff.  "We happen to be in complete agreement on that, by the way."

"Then why..." whatever angry question was forming from Mark stalled out as Melissa took a sip from her tea, raised a hand to interrupt him politely.

"Why am I wasting your time? Yeah, we heard about that this afternoon," said Melissa.  She glared at Hutch, the non-werewolf of the pair more likely to have shot her son with wolfsbane. "And the point in our chat tonight is that we know who you are.  You and the people you brought with you."

"Shall I point them out?" asked Peter.  Hutch shifted uncomfortably in his chair.  Peter looked like he was sizing up menu offerings.

"You are all in our city, causing trouble for our pack," said the sheriff.  Melissa looked to him, the faintest smile of pride on her face as she listened.   Stilinski kept his attention on the two hunters.  "And Talia is part of that.  There is no negotiating here.  You do not get her back."

"Or her children," added Melissa.

"I, on the other hand, would love to spend a few hours working with your little group," said Peter.  "But I've been told my intentions aren't _legal_ and shouldn't be encouraged."

Mark, sitting closest to Peter, sniffed and looked from him back to Melissa.  "You count Hales in your pack but something doesn't smell right here."

"Oh, that's the beauty of this whole thing," said Melissa.  "I'm the alpha here, you're most definitely in my territory and I don't want you here.  But I don't have _anything_ you want.  No fancy shifting techniques.  I got a manicure a week ago, but that’s it.  Which means you can’t do a thing about _me_.  What I've got is a .45 and a pack to protect.  And if you think werewolves with claws are scarier than that?  That's your problem."

"So what's going to happen now," said Peter, leaning his chair closer to Mark.  "Is that the four of your little friends out here are going to stand up and walk to their cars.  And they are going to leave town.  Then the two of you, if you value your hides, will join them."

"I'll give you four hours to get your shit and leave," said Melissa.  Her smile was gone.  "After that, I pull on every resource I have to get rid of you."

"And she's a very resourceful woman," added Stilinski.  "So I'd suggest you actually leave."

Melissa sipped at her tea as she waited for the hunters to make a move.

 

*0*0*

 

From the car, Derek had a hard time not laughing out loud.  He could see Mark and Hutch's faces easily, even heard most of their conversation.  It had the strangest effect on his mother, the woman slowly relaxing into her seat and some of the tension wearing off.

"Scott's an idiot sometimes, but I think I love his mom," Derek said quietly.  Stiles elbowed him, chin still tucked against his shoulder.

"One, she's taken, so just _No_.  Two, Scott's not an idiot, he just does stupid things sometimes.  Three, it is totally not fair that you can hear them," said Stiles.  "Spill it. What are they saying?"

"That she'll have them disemboweled if they're still here by midnight," said Derek, smirking.  Stiles grinned broadly but then paled.

"Shit, that's why Peter's here, isn't it?" he asked.

Up in the front, Chris nodded.  "The only werewolf of the three of them?  He would add an air of authenticity to a threat like that, yes."

Then the group they were watching stood up.  A few words were exchanged.  A few others around the cafe stood, too.  Melissa, the sheriff and Peter kept their seats.  Hutch and Mark and their entourage left the cafe.

Talia raised a fist, holding it back over her shoulder just enough.  Derek grinned and lifted his arm, sharing a fist-bump with his mom like he was still a kid and she had never been gone from his life.

 

*0*0*

 

"Yeah, we've got them."  Scott checked the cell phone picture Allison had sent and pointed.  He and Isaac stared out the window of the sheriff's cruiser, watching the car that they had been told to look for.  It was an old, beat up Oldsmobile boat and hard to miss.  They followed, _blatantly_.  When the Olds ran a red, Isaac flipped on the lights and floored it to keep following them.  The sheriff was going to _kill_ them, but this had been his idea and Scott figured he totally should have known better than to give them a light bar and not expect them to use it.

The Olds pulled into a motel lot and Isaac drove around the block.  He came back and parked far enough up the road that they could see the motel lot without being seen.  

"Do you think they'll leave?" asked Isaac.

"I dunno.  I _want_ them to leave," said Scott, "But that doesn't mean they _will_."

"It doesn't really make sense though," said Isaac.  "If they leave the city, so what?  They don't play by the code.  They'll just come back."

Scott frowned and nodded.  He messed with the bandage around his arm, fidgeting and almost nervous.  "I think that's why we're sitting outside their motel in a cop car," he said.  "Mom doesn't expect them to just leave, either."

 

*0*0*


	20. Chapter 20

For the _hundredth time_ in a week, Stiles woke up from a nap leaned against a werewolf.  And then the werewolf got the doubtful look that silently asked if Stiles would live to see his next birthday without someone watching him 24/7.  It was weirdly awesome, but slightly frustrating.  He didn't see anyone else getting babied when they got hurt.

"Sorry," he muttered.  He looked around to find he was at his own house this time, and it felt like it was the first time he had seen the place in years.  Derek split his attention between the nearly-muted TV and Stiles.

"Maybe you should go get real sleep?" he suggested.  "Before a crack becomes a break and you puncture a lung?"

"Thanks doc, I'll keep that in mind."  Stiles was not remotely interested in moving, perfectly comfortable where he was, but he _was_ tired and his pride was getting to him.  He sat up and scrubbed at his face.

"Where's my dad?" he asked.

"He had to go to the station, finish up work he missed this afternoon getting Scott to Deaton," said Derek.

"So, what, you're my babysitter now?" The question came out a little harsher than intended and Stiles shook his head.  Derek looked at him.

"Until they leave, yeah," said Derek.  Stiles blinked, his mind finally catching up.

"Scott's not back?" he asked.

"No.  He checked in twenty minutes ago.  Hutch and Mark haven't left their motel."

Frustrated, Stiles scrubbed at his face and growled.  He wasn't awake enough for this shit.

"Then somebody needs to get to the hospital and babysit Melissa," he said.  

Derek nodded at him.  "Peter's there."

That actually made Stiles feel better instead of worse.  "Good, nobody'll notice a few extra bodies showing up in the morgue."

Derek narrowed his eyes and looked about to ask a question that Stiles was _infinitely_ tired of hearing.  He cut him off.  "Yes, I'm fine," he said. "I'm just really, really _done_ with them."  He stood up from the couch, tentative about moving.  "So where's everybody else?"

"Ethan and Aiden are at my place with Cora," said Derek.  "Isaac's with Scott watching the motel.  Your dad's at work, Melissa's at work, and my mom is at Chris' place."

"Where's Al-"

"Allison's at Lydia's.  Danny's with the girls."

Everyone was doing _something_ , probably even the Banished Brigade, sans the Bait better known as Stiles.  He frowned.  "That's everybody."

Derek nodded.  "Go get some sleep.  Melissa's on shift until three.  I'll let you know when we move."

"I don't need a babysitter," said Stiles.

"Are you _kidding_?" Derek asked, the first flare of temper from him that Stiles had seen in awhile.

"No, I mean it.  Go _home_.  You haven't seen your bed in a week either," said Stiles. "And after the meeting tonight, I am so far down their list of soon-to-be-dead people its a waste.  Melissa, my dad, and your family.  Including you.  That's the list. You sitting here, with me, makes us sitting ducks just waiting to be grabbed around the neck and beat on the ground a few times.  You could be sitting with your mom right now, man."

The logic seemed to work, but Derek wasn't happy about it.  Stiles shook his head.

"Look, kill all the lights, it'll look like no one's home.  Dad's car is gone, I _have_ no car.  And he'll be home in an hour or so anyway.  I'm one hour without a babysitter.  It won't kill anybody."

Derek didn't like it.  But neither one of them felt like arguing about it.  They were in a weird space - each other's, more often than not lately - and Derek tread more carefully than Stiles even knew how to.  And if Derek pushed, Stiles wasn't afraid of pushing back anymore.  They had a very new track record building up.  He was 99.9% sure that Derek would let him win.  

And he did.  It didn't come to blows, Stiles was the only one who raised his voice, and Derek triple-checked every lock in the house before shutting off every light and leaving.  Stiles crawled into bed and told himself it was okay to pass out now.

 

*o*o*


	21. Chapter 21

They must be getting close to a full moon, Melissa decided, because the place was a raging nut house.  Somebody's kid - thank god none of hers - had decided to pull a _Jackass_ , and sat crying on a bed in the ER uploading the video to YouTube while he waited for the X-ray results on a broken collar bone.  There had been an accident on the highway because a twenty-something thought a squirrel was a dead body after a few too many hours marathoning _CSI_ on Netflix, so no less than three people were being treated from the pile-up.  And a cat got stuck in somebody's attic, which meant midnight remodeling to get it out, and, well, that man's wife was never letting him near power tools again.

A few crazies a week for a small town was a laugh, it kept the night shift awake and darkly amused.  But when they all crashed in to one night... It was a good thing Melissa liked what she did for a living.   The moment she had what looked like it was maybe a slow spot, somewhere close to ten pm, she took a break.  If she didn't, she was worried the exposure to the incoming madness might cost her IQ points.

Keeping in mind that there were hunters in town who now had her face memorized, Melissa took her ten minute escape by the ER lobby front doors.  More witnesses, less trouble.  She sat outside in the quiet and watched the empty street beyond the parking lot.

A car door slammed, startling her.  Melissa looked around, still perched on the bench.  She cast a look into the lobby, saw people still milling around.  Some moaned, some sneezed, but they were still right there.  When she looked back at the street, she saw a woman half-carrying someone bigger than her toward the door.  Melissa stood up and tried to get a better look.

"Hey! Help! Are you a nurse?" the woman called out.  She had just gotten her charge into the lot from the street and he stumbled, almost taking them down.  Melissa frowned, punched the Emergency Assistance button at the wall by the sliding doors, and headed out to help.  This was her whole night tonight, everything just slightly sideways.  In a minute there would be orderlies out to usher them inside, but in the meantime she could help.

When she got out to them, the man had fallen to his knees and propped himself up on his arms.  The woman crouched beside him, checking on him in a cooing voice.  Melissa approached carefully, trying to assess the damage.  She saw shadows and odd colors thanks to the blue-white street lamps, but there were stripes on his chest that looked like blood.

"What's wrong?" she asked quickly.  

"I don't know he just..." The woman sounded hysterical.  The man beside her made a gasping noise.  Melissa deemed it real enough and waved for the woman to help.  She lifted the man's arm over her shoulder and grabbed his belt to show the woman how to get him back up off the ground.

"Come on, lets get him inside.  Closer anyway when they get here with the wheelchair," she said.  "On the count of three, we stand up, right?"

"Right," came the sniffled response.

Melissa made the count and as she stood up, the hand around her shoulder lifted up to cover her mouth.  The man who could barely walk a moment earlier twisted away from his companion to hold a knife to Melissa's ribs.  She was scared but not so terrified that the voice in the back of her mind that had made her page the orderlies couldn't call her three different kinds of stupid.

"You wanted to play with the big dogs, lady," the stranger said.  "You should have seen this coming."

She was still tucked under his arm from having tried to help him up, so she was in his space and stuck.  He let the blunt edge of the knife prod into her side and Melissa yelped.  The two strangers hustled her out to the street.  One hand shoving at his arm to keep his hold away from her neck, Melissa tucked the other in her pocket, fumbling for her phone.  At the street, the man kicked her ankle and tripped her up, sending Melissa sprawling.  The cell skittered away to the middle of the road.

"Shit!" She scrambled to reach it but was caught and hauled to her feet.  The man shoved her to a sedan, the door open in a hint.

"Nice try," said the woman who held the door for her.  "Now in the car.  Unless you'd rather let the Stilinski kid set up another meeting for you."

Melissa stared at the gaping car door.  The soft yellow light inside mocked her.  Things had suddenly become very real.

 

*0*0*

 

Stiles awoke to flat blackness in his room.  He still ached all over but at least this time he remembered where he had fallen asleep in the first place.  The alarm clock said it was just ten.  His dad should be home by now.  He lay still, listening for the house-noise that would tell him where his dad was.  Everything was quiet and still, like the empty house was asleep.

Stiles noticed movement first, then the slight sound of someone in the room with him.  At the foot of his bed.  The shadow leaned against his desk. He sat up a little to throw a pillow at it.

"Damnit, Derek! Go home!"

The shadow moved closer and caught the fall of light from his window.  Stiles scrambled backward up from the bed.

"Oh hell," he breathed.  Across the room, Mark smiled at him, showing teeth.

  
*0*0*


	22. Chapter 22

Scott woke up choking.  His mouth felt like a desert had gone there to _die_ , all sand and too small for his teeth.  He looked to his still healing arm, figuring it was the culprit.  He checked under the bandage and saw it was nearly healed.  That still amazed him, the instant healing, even when it wasn't exactly instant.  He lazily backhanded Isaac's shoulder.  

"Dude.  Why'd you let me fall asleep?" he asked.  He glanced at the car clock, seeing it was ten pm and he had dozed nearly an hour.  Scott looked up to realize that he had startled Isaac awake too.

"Wha-" Isaac's grumble was interrupted by caution as he stared at Scott.  Scott reached over and pulled a dart from Isaac's neck.  Isaac belatedly swatted at the spot it had been stuck, making an "ow" face.   Then he saw one resting on Scott's right shoulder, like it had fallen out on its own.

"Crap! They left!" Scott craned forward to be sure he could still see the motel parking lot.  The parking lot had more cars in it than it had a few hours ago.  But the Oldsmobile was gone.  He pulled out his phone and called the sheriff.

"Can you drive?" he asked Isaac.  They had just been drugged so it was hardly the smartest plan.  But there was no way they could stay where they were.

"Yeah... I think so," said Isaac.  Even as he spoke he turned the engine on.

"We gotta go check on Stiles," said Scott.  Derek was supposed to be watching him, and they could reorganize from that point after Scott had warned everyone.

That's when Isaac stopped moving.  He got out of the car and grabbed something off the windshield pinned under a wiper like a ticket.  It was tossed in at Scott for Scott to read.  Scott didn't even notice that the sheriff had picked up the phone as he sorted out the loopy handwritten note.

"Hale house.  Midnight.  Two-for-two trade."

 

*0*0*

 

Talia looked up from the chess board.  The clock said it was ten.  They had a while to go yet.  It had been two hours since Scott had checked in with Derek.  She looked over to see her son staring at the clock too.  He had such a somber and serious look sometimes that it was hard to recognize the teenager she had unwillingly left behind years earlier.

He pulled out his cell phone, checking for messages.  

"Something's wrong," said Talia quietly.  Derek grimaced.  He moved the phone to his ear.

"Cora? is everything alright?"  Derek seemed confused.  "Good.  We were just checking... Yeah."

When Derek hung up the phone, Talia stood from their game and went to the window to watch the street.  Derek made another phone call.

"Scott... What?" Talia looked back at the quiet alarm in her son's voice.  She paced to the hall and was about to call for Chris when the man showed up in his office doorway.  He looked confused and anxious.  Talia knew the feeling.  She nodded for him to join them and he did, following the only clue he had.  

"The sheriffs station.  Meet us."  Derek waited long enough for a confirmation before he hung up the phone and grabbed his jacket.  

"They drugged Scott and Isaac.  Same as they did to get us to Tahoe," Derek reported as he moved.  "Scott thinks he’s been out for an hour.  We have to go check on Stiles and then get to the station.  Scott's trying to find Peter."

Chris caught Talia's arm as she tried to rush by him.  He derailed their hurry with a detour to the office for weapons and ammo.  Mark and his crew would take more than bullets to bring down.  The sheriff's station was stocked, but his was better.  Derek had no patience for Chris' logic and went down ahead of them.  

When Talia and Chris got downstairs to the garage with Chris' truck, they realized the mistake.  Derek's presence in the garage had drawn gunfire, and silencers still made noise.  From the stairwell Talia heard the report of three muzzles and Chris was in the doorway when he saw the ricochet that kept Derek pinned against a car for cover.  It was nice to have the warning but Talia could have done without her son in the middle of it.  Chris pushed her away from the doors before she could get close enough to be seen.  

“I’ll get him out,” he said.  He took the backpack she carried and set it down with his own near the wall.  He told her where to find his wife’s car up on the street.  “The keys are in the dash.  Meet us at the lobby drop-off.”  

Hiding a flare of anger, Talia tilted her head.  Why would a security expert make the rookie mistake of leaving keys in the car?  He was trying to separate them, send her away from Derek to weaken them.  Had the hunter switched sides again?  

Then she realized that the situation they found themselves in now was exactly why Chris would leave the keys in the car; emergency cover from werewolves and monsters and no danger of losing the keys in a fight.  When he pointed her toward the stairs a second time, Talia moved.  She hesitated long enough to see Chris shove through the doors and call for Derek’s attention.  She tried not to think about the firefight that followed.  Then she was up the stairs to the street level and charged across the bright and airy lobby.  

 

*0*0*

 

Derek's decision to meet at the station was outranked by Stilinski's decision to meet at his place.  After the week they had already had, he had to see for himself that his son wasn't actually there.  He knew Derek wouldn't make that up, with the way the two had paired up since Tahoe.  The sheriff just had to check the scene himself.  At least it wasn't another accident, and there was no blood trail across the floor.  Scott said they had a ransom note.  They had everything they needed to follow up.

When Scott, Isaac and Peter shoved their way into the house, Stilinski looked up from where he slumped over his knees on the edge of the couch.  

"All we found was Mom’s phone,” said Scott as he walked into the living room.  “I had her paged and everything.  Her trail just stopped near the phone.”

Stilinski held a hand over his mouth, reminding himself to just keep breathing.  Everything hadn’t fallen apart yet.  He cast a glance at Peter scouting around the living room for god-knew-what.

“He was shot, too," said Scott, pointing at Peter.  It made Stilinski feel a little better to know that the man hadn’t just fallen asleep on the job.  Melissa didn’t like Peter much but she had trusted him to help her when Stilinski and Chris were in Tahoe, and he didn’t want to think that trust had been misplaced just now.  Scott was apparently of the same opinion, with better reason for it.  "Just winged him, went through the seat, so no poison."

The older werewolf scowled and stomped up the stairs without asking permission.

Stilinski called after him, "Derek and Talia already checked for a scent!"

"I don't _care_!" Peter called back in a matching tone.  He was going to see for himself.  The sheriff knew the feeling.  He looked over at Scott and Derek.

"Call the others.  We'll meet at the gate to the preserve, figure out how to handle this on the hike in."

"It happened at ten," said Scott. "We've already lost forty minutes."

"Then tell them to _hurry_ ," said Stilinski.  "Until everyone else is accounted for, nobody says a word about it.  Understood?

Derek opened his mouth, likely to say something really stupid, and Stilinski wasn't in the mood for it.  He stood up and took a step toward the younger, much stronger man without blinking.  

"You ride with me," he said.  "And no talking.  Because I know _exactly_ what'll come out of your mouth and maybe up there you'll listen to the rest of the _pack_ when we tell you it's a stupid idea.  We’re not trading."

Derek held the sheriff's glare for a long, tense moment.  Then he looked away, at the phone that hadn't left his hand for a half an hour.  Stilinski saw the screen light up, watched the call engage, and then moved away.  One tiny battle won, he looked to Chris and Talia where they stood across the room.  Chris nodded his approval of the plan.  Talia... Was really good at being completely unreadable.  Stilinski huffed and scrubbed at his face.  Peter pounced down the stairs then, coming up short right behind Scott.

“You ride with them,” Stilinski said, pointing Peter toward Scott and Isaac.  Now that they were all there, everyone on the same page, it was time to leave.  The sheriff didn’t even stop to lock the door as they left.

 

*0*0*

 

Whatever goodwill Stiles had earned from Mark by not dying in the first fight back in Tahoe was completely gone by the time Stiles was shoved into the Hale house.  He was handcuffed and they hadn’t let him grab a jacket from his house, but he counted himself lucky to have lived that long; he realized about a mile into the drive that he talked way too much when he was nervous.  Locked in the trunk all to himself, he had said a few things about Mark's mother that he really shouldn't have within the werewolf’s hearing.  

"Does this place have a basement anymore?" Mark asked.  It was more of a growl, but Hutch still only shrugged at it.  

“Should be one,” he said.  He stared at Stiles expectantly, across a room lit by a Coleman camp lantern, as though he expected Stiles to volunteer himself for the traumatizing experience of being locked in a burnt-out, pitch black basement where people had died.  Stiles just shrugged and shook his head.

"Probably?" he said, stalling.

Mark grabbed his forearm - _Oww! Those were claws!_ \- and dragged him to the middle of the room where Stiles could do the least damage.  He could see pretty well, though, and he stared at Hutch and the patch-job the man was doing on his own arm.  In the dim lighting, Stiles couldn't see any actual blood, just darker shadows, so that was at least one win for the night.

"What happened to you?" he asked, hoping it involved claws, or maybe wolfsbane bullets.  Hutch glared at him but kept cleaning up his arm.

"Chris Argent happened," Hutch said.  "Damn traitor."

Stiles did a small mental cheer.  Outwardly, he shrugged like he didn't know what the man was talking about.  Mark kicked a chunk of broken furniture at him.

"Wipe the smug look off your face, kid, or I'll be happy to do it for you," said Mark.  Standing in the middle of the floor - in handcuffs again, which was really annoying - Stiles turned to look at the werewolf.

"What? I have nothing to do with the Argents.  You wanna pout about them using your brother for shooting practice, fine, but leave me out of it," he said.

"Bullshit," said Mark.  "I knew the second I saw you back here that he was behind the trouble at my place.”  

“I _live_ here!” argued Stiles.  Mark stepped forward and Stiles’ boldness died, sending him back a step to match.  Mark accepted that as a win and went back to damning the Argents.

“He called around looking for you before the Amber Alert came out.  You're cozy with the Hales.  Not even two degrees of separation between Argent and 'traitor,'" he said.

"We just had no proof until he shot at us," said Hutch.  Stiles didn't say anything, too busy thinking how to deflect some of it off of Chris.  It was going to be very difficult for Chris to get any of his contacts to ever call him back after this.

"So you didn't get Talia back?" asked Mark, his attention finally leaving Stiles.

"Didn't see her," said Hutch.  "Took aim at one of her kids, then Chris shows up, shooting us."

"Which kid?" asked Stiles before he could shut his mouth.

"The dead one," returned Hutch, taunting.  Stiles stood up a little taller, reminding himself not to listen. They had kept Talia locked up from her family for so long by Kate’s lying.  Hutch hadn't killed anyone.  It was just a game to him, the hunter taunting the freakshow who voluntarily associated with monsters.  Stiles didn't feel like playing. 

*0*0*

 


	23. Chapter 23

Melissa had never seen the old Hale house before.  It was an ominous, dark relic among the trees once the car lights shut down.  There was a faint light from inside that only added to the surreal feeling of the night.  When she was dragged out of the car, Melissa tucked in on herself, grateful for the light jacket she had grabbed to take her break.  It was cold, the winds still whipped the trees and leaves dragged across the clearing around the house.  It whistled in places, quiet but eerie.  She stumbled at the steps, expecting the wood to give.  It creaked, solid, and Melissa was marched to the doorway and through it, then into the room with the light.

Looking around, alert, Melissa immediately saw Stiles standing in the middle of the room.  Someone had drawn a circle in the dust and debris around where he stood.  He swore, barely loud enough to be heard; he was as unhappy to see her as she was to see him.  There were two from the pack, in danger, and in the same convenient place.  Hale property.

"A trade?" she asked, looking from face to face of the hunters in the room.  Six of them crowded inside, and they had passed at least one other in the car on the drive up.  "Is that what this is?"

"Forget that," muttered Stiles.  Melissa cut him a glare and he quieted.

"You're the alpha," said Mark.  "Either they trade for you, or I'll take the pack from you, get what we want that way."

Stiles looked up at Melissa then, eyes wide.  He stepped toward her and then stopped, looking to Hutch.  "No, nuh uh.  She's not a wolf... It doesn't work like that."

"Talia had humans in her pack before," said Hutch.  "So it obviously _does_ work like that."

Melissa felt like she was missing a huge piece of the puzzle and looked to Stiles.  "Work like what?"

"The alpha... Thing."  Stiles seemed to be struggling to think and talk at the same time.  That _never_ happened.

"Stiles..."

"You're kidding," said Hutch suddenly.  He looked from Melissa to Stiles and back.  "She's the alpha and she doesn't even know what they _do_ to alphas?"

Stiles wanted badly to say something, his expression more angry and conflicted than Melissa had ever seen on the kid's face.  He could answer her question, fix whatever their misperception was, but the hunters were there.  It had to do with the pack.  The instinct to protect everyone versus the instinct to protect Melissa.  She frowned, unable to tell the teenager that it was okay just then.  Instead, she tried to take the choice from him.  She looked to Hutch, open and conversational.

"So tell me.  What are they protecting me from?" she asked.

Stiles opened his mouth to preemptively argue whatever Hutch would say.  Melissa cautioned him off and he seemed to breathe a little.

"It's natural selection, sweetheart," said Hutch.  "The stronger animal survives."

"In a normal pack, if someone picks a fight with an alpha and wins, they take their pack, their power, all the perks," added Mark.  "The Hales had humans in their pack before, and they've got one for an _alpha_ now, that makes you fair game."

Stiles stumbled a few steps toward Melissa but was brought up short by the sound of a gun clicking ammo into the chamber when he got too close to the dirt line.  Melissa turned to see what he had been trying to protect her from only to come up against Mark's chest.  She hadn’t heard him move yet he had cleared six feet of space in silence.  Definite wolf.  He wasn't much taller than Stiles and she had to look up to see him.

"I could snap your neck like a twig," he said, at least thinking the action over as he watched her.  "And step in as the new alpha of your pack.  Talia and her kids would answer to me.  All our problems, solved."

“What?” asked Melissa.  She blinked at him.  Her arms were still folded across her chest and kept him out of her space at least a little.  “Like in _Highlander_?  There’s a werewolf Quickening - whoomph, _all_ the magic?  And that makes them _follow_ you?”

“Like puppies,” said Mark.  

“Not exactly,” muttered Stiles.

“Not at all,” said Melissa.  She was standing far too close to someone much, much bigger than her, and better armed than her, who intended her harm.  The situation was very real to her.  But power theft or not, her pack would barely pull together behind someone they _liked_.  Mark didn’t have a prayer; he would be one sad puppy when he promptly got his ass handed to him by the werewolves of his new pack for making that mistake.  She shook her head and shrugged.  “It won’t work.  I would rather _not_ lose my head for something that won’t work.”

A sound escaped from Stiles that was almost inhuman and Melissa looked over at him when she saw Mark glance his way too.  Stiles stared at her with something between hero-worship and explosive frustration at the evidence that Scott’s mild-mannered mother could be flippant to someone threatening to kill her.  Melissa bit the inside of her lip and tried not to smile.  She was scared out of her freakin’ mind, but she had taken worse abuse from ‘roid-jocks in the ER than she had so far.  She was _worried_ , but not panicked yet.  

“The small detail that you’re human has also not escaped our attention,” said Hutch.  “Bodies are messy to clean up when they’re human as opposed to werewolves.”

Melissa fidgeted, looking around the room instead of paying attention to Hutch ramble on about the various reasons why they would prefer the trade.  She could give them a few hundred reasons why she would prefer _not dying_ and really didn’t want to accidentally sway them one way over the other.  She wanted to stall.  The trade wouldn’t happen, that just wasn’t the way any of them worked.  But the others would show up, something would be done - _that_ was how they worked - and then she could gloat all she wanted to about her ex-husband making a big federal issue out of their simple little plan to _trade_.  

She had almost tuned him out, her attention caught by the creak of the floor near where one of the hunters stood not far from Stiles’ circle.  She had a board that squeaked like that on the stairs once.  It didn’t end well.  Then Stiles broke his obviously painful forced silence.

“Okay, seriously dude?  Your _brother_ is a werewolf.  He’s still _human_.”  Stiles interrupted Hutch.  The man had been happily lecturing about werewolves-according-to-hunters, not paying any attention to them, the other hunters getting bored and moving around... and Stiles _stopped_ him.  Melissa looked at the boy with all the patience she could manage and hoped he got the message.  He didn’t, carried right on.  Lecturing a _Hunter_ about _Werewolf Rights_ and their drastic philosophical differences.  Melissa buried her face in her palm.  So this was how they would pass the time apparently...

 

***


	24. Chapter 24

The ride to the preserve access road up to the Hale house was a tense one.  Chris drove, and Derek made it very clear that if he tried to drive his truck _into_ his house, there were going to be problems.  Other than that, Derek glared out the window behind Stilinski.  Talia sat beside him, quiet and offering up no advice or ideas on the situation.  Apparently her idea was the same as Derek’s, but she was a little more open to suggestions.  Stilinski was slowly losing his grasp on the one plan he did have in the quiet of the truck.  It consisted mainly of getting to the house and kicking the ass of everyone involved in the kidnapping of his son and girlfriend - he _finally_ starts dating again and this is what happens? _Really_? - but the details on how to get in, and how to keep teenagers from killing people, were very vague.  He looked to Chris.

"I don't know how... No idea what to do here."  Stilinski stayed quiet, not wanting to invite Derek into the conversation even if the werewolf could hear him perfectly well.

"Stop thinking like a cop,” said Chris.  He shrugged.  “What happens is _we get them back_.  Anybody in the way, they took that risk when they decided to play this game."

"We _provoked_ them, Chris.  We wanted the fight, we just weren't prepared when they brought it,” said the sheriff.  He was thinking again about the call they had made to let Scott and Isaac set watch.  They had limited options then and they had fewer now.  “What are we going to do? Take them _out_? Like, _out_ out?"

"Yes."  Like it was the most obvious answer in the world.  Stilinski stared at him in silence for a moment, surprised.  He motioned toward the back seat and the car that followed them.  A sheriff’s vehicle very notably not being driven by a deputy.  Scott was deputized by the old-west rules, maybe, but Stilinski would never be able to explain that to anyone who worked for the city.

"We’ve got _kids_ for back-up!” he said, just in case Chris had somehow forgotten.  “When Kyle gets done with this, they'll have multiple counts of Murder One before they've got their diplomas."

Chris shook his head.  One hand pounded on the steering wheel, the man getting as frustrated with Stilinski as he was with Chris.  "Wrong rulebook, Casey.  You're in Kyle's.  Reality works from a darker book."

That wasn’t enough and Stilinski couldn’t quite excuse everything else for the reasoning.  "I know the system.  It can be just as scary as this."

"You're the sheriff.  You uphold the laws,” said Chris.  His tone was still angry but he was trying a different tact.  “They've broken a dozen of them.  Just think of these kids as the SWAT team doing the extraction."

The sheriff scoffed.  "That's kind of difficult to include on the paperwork."

"Are you honestly worried about paperwork right now?" returned Chris.

Stilinski shook his head, adamant.  "The kids. My own included. And Melissa."

"Then whatever happens, _happens_ ,” insisted Chris.  “Maybe you'll get to arrest the Hutchinsons and their team, and maybe Kyle will throw in Stiles' report and take the case from you.  Don't worry about the damage we're going to do because I can guarantee you, they _are_ going to take damage whether you can wrap your head around it or not."

"I'm a _cop_. I can't just turn that off," said Stilinski.  The sheriff leaned against the door and stared out the window.  The same hunters had taken his son from him, twice now, and now they added Melissa to the mix.  He really, really wished he could turn off the training and the years of experience that reminded him he had taken an oath to uphold the law, not play judge and jury on some bastards that really deserved it.  Behind the wheel, Chris stared over at him like Stilinski had finally caught on.

"Welcome to my world,” he said dryly.  The hunter scoffed and returned his attention to the drive.  “Different books, sheriff.  Get used to it."

 

*0*0*

 

The gate to the Beacon Hills Preserve had become a parking lot.  A sheriff’s car, an SUV, and two sports cars.  The group stood among the vehicles, crowded together but alert to their surroundings.  Talia kept Cora near her, hovering near the SUV and Chris.  The cars were the cover they had available in such an open space and they stuck to them, albeit impatiently.  She listened, distracted by the nighttime noise of the woods around them as the sheriff gave everyone the limited information they had and then opened the discussion to all ideas _except_ Derek’s: They weren’t trading two Hales, or the twins, for Melissa and Stiles.  That was off the table.

“There _has_ to be something else,” said Stilinski.  “We have... _some_ time, anyway.  Let’s use what we’ve got.”  He looked to Derek.  “Can we get in the tunnels?”

“Yes.”  Derek was tight-jawed and standoffish, but cooperating.  

“But they won’t do us any good with the time we’ve got,” said Peter.  “We’ve got to hike in as it is.  The tunnels take longer, we lose time, and the basement access isn’t reliable.”

The sheriff made a face, confused.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean the damn thing could be locked or blocked,” said Peter.  He was plenty testy and they had only gotten started.  “I don’t think I need to point out it’s happened before.”

“That’s enough,” said Talia.  Cora edged closer to her mother and Stilinski kept clear of all the Hales.

“We’ve got them all in one place,” said Peter, determined.  “I think we should, Derek and I, go in as a trade.  Get _our_ girl out.  And then burn the place to the ground this time.”

Talia found a space between cars and teenagers to glare at.  “No trade.  We find something else.”

“Fine, but you’re putting an awful lot of trust in them keeping their word,” said Peter.  “I don’t.  If they kill her, we’re _all_ toast.”

“Wait.  Stop!”  Stilinski cut a hand through the air in the circle to call for a time-out.  “What’s that mean?  The thing about toast.  What?”

Talia took a deep breath and stayed quiet, shaking her head and ducking into the overcoat she had borrowed before they left the Argent home.  She didn’t want to consider the possibility and she didn’t particularly want anyone else to.  Chris looked to her briefly and she avoided his gaze.  

“Well, she’s an alpha.  The _opposite_ of an omega.  An omega is alone, he has no defenses,” he offered, tentative as he put the pieces together himself, in the way that made sense to what he knew.  “But Melissa has defense, power, because of the pack.  And that power can be stolen when someone steps up as a new alpha...”

“Melissa will be fine,” Talia said.  Peter moved around in their covered area, expending energy, his arms crossed to keep his hands from talking.

“But if she’s _not_ fine then they get a whole pack to steer around,” said Peter.  He looked to Scott.  “You know what that’s like.  You fought me on it.  You won.”  He pointed to Isaac and Lydia.  “But those two won’t be able to.”

Isaac looked offended.  Lydia, standing in her flat boots and looking completely unlike herself in warm camping clothes, seemed to go sheet-white under her camouflage hat.  Scott bristled, stood straighter like someone had walked over his grave.  He looked over at Derek.  “What about what you said before?” he asked.  “If we don’t believe in them then we won’t follow them.”

“Stealing power from the alpha is different than just losing the pack.   _Taking_ a pack is not _building_ a pack,” Talia said, sparing Derek from the pain of having to speak up through the apparently locked jaw.  “It draws on the power behind the pack, on instinct.  It doesn’t fade as it does when the pack leaves, because it takes what connection is already there and holds it.”

“You can try to drop from the pack, but instinct will make it _really_ hard,” said Peter.  

“But she’s not a werewolf,” said Aiden.  From what Talia had heard so far, he and his brother knew well enough the curse of instinct and dealing with contrary alphas.  “How bad can it be?”

Peter pointed at Scott.  “He’s a True alpha.  I had my choice between two kids that night in the woods,” he said.  “I went with the one I saw as a _threat_.  And he wasn’t a wolf then.”

“If it’s in the family,” said Talia, suddenly realizing what had Peter so on edge.  “Melissa could hold enough power for Mark to control the packs who hold her territory if it was _taken_ from her.”  

Talia never would have known to look for it because she had met Melissa after the woman took on the pack, had been introduced to her as a non-wolf.  But Peter had, in his half-mad, fully instinctive prowlings after the coma from the fire, sensed the spark in Scott.  Turning Scott brought it out in Melissa full-force.  Melissa had pulled in the pack, creating ties of added strength to the energy she already held.  Talia looked from Peter to Scott, then took in the rest of the group as it hit her what Peter was trying to say.  For all the group of three packs was stronger together, it was still a greater liability when the alpha at the top was at risk.

Melissa’s pack was comprised of a mix, it wasn’t pure-strain werewolf.  There were wolves, humans, and a banshee of all things.  The variety was unpredictable because each member of the pack brought their own power to it, sometimes more or less than what would ordinarily be found in a wolf pack. Ethan, Aiden, Peter and Talia herself were all at one time alphas, bringing with them that capacity for strength.  Scott and Derek had their own mixed-blood in their packs.  And who could tell what energies a banshee could bring in.  Werewolf or not, in her fledgling tenure as alpha and den-mother, Melissa had tapped into more power than she had any right to know what to do with.  If she were killed by Mark, the pack would be at risk from a new alpha they did not want.

Defeated, Talia wrapped her arms around her daughter’s shoulders as Cora leaned back against her.  “We have to trade.”

A victorious Peter puffed up and waved to his sister.  “And that’s the only _expert_ we’ve got on this.  You want it in writing?”

Chris and Stilinski exchanged a look, the two founding-members of Melissa’s pack, weighing it out.  They still didn’t know how in over their heads they had gotten themselves.  Talia could have laughed if she wasn’t so worried about the hunter-trained werewolves taking over what they and Melissa had created.

“Fine,” said the sheriff.  “We trade.  Peter and Derek for Melissa and Stiles.”

“Thank you,” said Peter.  He was the only one of the group who seemed at all at ease with the arrangement.  Talia didn’t trust the Hutchinson brothers to keep their word and wondered out loud if the switch would be enough.  

“They came to Beacon Hills looking for me,” Talia said.  “I don’t think they’ll accept Peter.”

“That’s their problem,” said Chris.  “We already told them you weren’t leaving.”

“It doesn’t matter,” added Stilinski.  “They won’t be staying.  They’re just the bait.”  
  
*0*0*


	25. Chapter 25

They had parked over a mile from the house to hike through the preserve and approach the house unnoticed.  it was tedious, everyone was anxious.  Small conversations cropped up but died out quickly, everyone too worried about what waited for them at the house.  Cora hung on to her mother's hand and kept them back from the rest.  Talia sensed the worry from her daughter and allowed it.

"It'll be okay," said Talia.  "Melissa can do this.  If I thought she couldn't, we wouldn't have stayed."

"But..." Cora glanced up ahead where Chris and Stilinski walked in silence.  Her uncle looked back at her but kept up with the other two adults of Melissa's pack.  Cora nodded toward them.

"This is all really not a good idea.  I don't trust them.  Especially not with this."

Talia looked over at Cora, seeing the scrappy teenager's glare when she wasn't watching the woods.  Cora had lived on the streets for six years, an entire lifetime crammed into a short space by the experience.  Talia's once whole children were broken, unable to trust anyone but themselves, unable to recognize the bonds of the pack that had adopted them.  Cora took the three packs at face-value, saw only people who had hurt her.  Talia had seen the glare aimed at herself a few times over the past few days.  There was a rage in the girl that Talia knew too well.

"Do you trust Allison?" Talia asked.  Cora scoffed.

"Or Isaac?"  That earned a shrug.

 "What about Scott?"

Cora nodded, a reluctant confession.

"Do you trust Derek?" Talia asked.  "Or me?"  Cora frowned and looked up at her.

"Yes," she said.

"But not Peter."

"Nobody trusts Peter."

"Not true," said Talia.  "Melissa does.  I do."

"Then you're as crazy as he is."

Talia almost grinned.  She leaned closer to Cora, lowered her voice.  "You learn the nature of the beasts around you, and then you work with it.  You expect it.  You wouldn't _fight_ a storm.  You don't fight nature."

"But they're _Argents_.  Their nature is to kill us.  The stuff that happened..."

"A name," said Talia.  "But not their nature.   Their actions have shown me that they are guardians more than hunters.  And they are _nothing_ like their family.  And I have no reason not to trust my own observations."

Cora frowned, thinking it over.  Talia nodded toward their old home off in the distance and completely hidden by trees.  "For now, I trust that Melissa will be alright, and I trust that her pack, Scott's pack, and Derek will fight for her. And I will help."

"But what if they lied-"

Talia shrugged, her expression thoughtful.  "Then they lied.  Very, _very_ well, because I didn't hear it.  I'll deal with that when I need to.  For now, I trust what I have seen and heard for myself.  I _trust_ myself.  But I am not alone now and I don't want to be again.  I will accept their help to keep us safe."

Cora looked at her then, a look of understanding on her somber expression.  Talia looked up to where Scott walked with his pack.  Cora followed her gaze, flicked her attention briefly back to Talia.  She gave a tight grin, squeezed her mother's hand and then let go.  Without a word, Cora moved in long strides to brush by her uncle and her brother to catch up to Scott.  Talia fell into step beside Peter.

"She's right you know," said Peter quietly.  Of course he had been listening, and Talia just grinned at him.  "You're just as crazy as I am.  There's no way you aren't."

Talia shrugged at his observation, the slight grin on her face unchanged.  "I'm entitled.  I've had a busy few years."

 

*0*0*

 

The day had given Scott McCall way too much to think about.  And in the quiet march up to the house, he was really missing his best friend's habit of inopportune rambling.  He would openly admit he was missing his mom just then, too, but there was no one around to drag it out of him.  He was far from alone, but no one really felt chatty

Cora had left her mother to walk behind with the sheriff, Chris and Peter.  Instead, she trailed at Scott's shoulder, with Isaac and Allison.  Scott felt someone watching him and glanced over at Derek not far behind.  He wore a smirk and looked from his sister to Scott in a clear _I Told You So_.   Scott chanced a grin back.  In a few more yards he slowed and the others waited.  

Derek's line was a little slower, tall men pacing themselves off of the shorter strides of Lydia.  Based on the glares frequently exchanged between Lydia and Aiden, _and_ Danny and Ethan, the twins were worried about them not staying behind.  Scott was glad to see them, despite the risk.  They were part of it, wolves or not.  They had time enough to keep back with the rest of the larger pack.

Derek caught up and they started their hike again, in the dark, over mud and leaves and branches and between trees.  A night hike with an unknown outcome that Scott _couldn't_ let himself dwell on.

"We're being followed," he said to Derek.  The man surprised him with a nod.

"Yep.  And Stilinski said to leave it alone," said Derek.

"He knows?"

"It's your dad," Derek replied.  "He's followed us since the house."

"But I don't want him involved," said Scott.  He now had something else to worry about.  Derek gave him a sideways glare.

"I think right now, I'm more worried about what's ahead of us than what's behind us tripping on acorns," said Derek.  Scott hesitated, listening for his dad back somewhere behind the others.  He thought he heard Kyle swear at a gopher hole.

"Fine," said Scott.  "Just one more person we have to keep safe."

Derek looked over at him, strangely calm.  "Pretty sure we can pull it off.  As long as the fire-swamp back there doesn't get him first.

Despite himself, Scott smiled.

 

*0*0*

 

With five minutes to spare, the pack made it to the house.  They kept back among the trees, out of the moonlight.   Derek looked in at the house he still knew so well, reading the signs of occupancy easily.  One of the hunters stood on the porch, looking out at the road that ended at the house.  There were cars there, four of them.  And a suburban that looked familiar.  Derek almost laughed.  It just figured.  He pointed the truck out to Chris and the sheriff.  Chris didn't admit to knowing it if he had ever seen it before.   Derek looked from Chris to Allison.

"Can either of you take care of the tires on that one from the trees?" he asked.  "I don't want that truck going anywhere."

Chris looked to Allison with a nod.  The girl and her bow started toward the parking area from behind the cover of the tree line.  Scott sent Isaac with her.  

"Shall we provide a distraction for our little Robin Hood?" asked Peter.  Derek wasn't quite as eager to barge in; he could track two of the hunters around the house and he knew there were more.  He would rather know who, where and how many he had to deal with.  The house was just too overgrown to get a good idea.  He frowned but reluctantly nodded when Stilinski looked to him.

The sheriff took a breath and seemed to have to shore himself up for the task.  Then he looked to Chris.  "You going in with us this time?"

Chris nodded.  He looked to Scott.  "Until we know what we're dealing with, you hold back here.  Watch for their strays," he said, motioning toward the house.  "And get Lydia and Danny armed."

Derek shook off the tension and looked back at the house.  There was no plan after this.  Too many variables, too much could go wrong.  They all had to make it up as they went along.  Changing plans under fire wasn’t a big deal for some of them, but others were completely untried.  He worried.  Then he heard Stiles’ ranting from inside the house and was reminded that he had ended up in a pack that could get pretty scrappy when backed into a corner.  

And then they heard gunshots from the house.

 

*0*0*


	26. Chapter 26

Melissa was making Stiles nervous.  She paced near him, making the compromised floor squeak and complain between the two of them. It was getting close to the witching hour and the tension made Stiles fidget.  He stepped toward Melissa, intending to interrupt her path for his own sanity.

"Hey," said one of Mark's buddies.  The henchman Stiles had days ago dubbed Bee turned out to be a Ricky.  Stiles looked up to see the werewolf pointing a gun in his direction and for a split second was worried he had lost track of time.  "Inside the line."

Stiles looked down at his shoe, which rested on the line drawn in the ashy dirt.  He looked up at Ricky.  "Are you kidding me?" he blurted. "How is this that important to you?  What am I gonna do two feet _that_ way that is worse than the _nothing_ I'm doing here."

The response was two bullets in the floor hardly feet in front of Melissa and only inches from Stiles.  Melissa yelped.  He jumped back.

"I'm in the freaking circle, okay? Jeezus."  

However it had been accomplished, the mission was at least successful; Melissa stopped pacing.  She stood angled between Stiles' circle and the wall, her arms still crossed protectively.  She toyed with her necklace, but Stiles preferred that show of anxiousness to the creak of the floor.

The excitement brought everyone back, people running down stairs and doors crashing.

"What the hell..." Hutch asked, then trailed off when he saw Stiles still edged close to the line.  The hunter checked his watch.

"Next time, shoot him," he said, granting permission.  "It's midnight, on the nose. They're la-"

The announcement of the hostages' pending deaths was interrupted by the wolves in the room heading for the front door.  Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard his dad's voice yelling from the lawn.

"Hutchinson! Are we gonna do this or not?"

Hutch and the woman hunter, Jules, remained behind.  Stiles felt a little better about Hutch and his knife babysitting them than he would have felt being guarded by a wolf.   He glanced at Melissa and saw she kept watching the floor.

"You're okay, right?" he asked, voice pitched quiet yet ridiculously loud in the otherwise silent room.  Melissa nodded.  Her attention darted from the floor to Hutch and back.  Stiles suddenly realized what Melissa had been doing by pacing the floor.  He looked to Hutch.

"Can I move now?" he asked.

"Shut up, I'm trying to listen," said Hutch, gesturing to the overgrown wall of ivy, saplings and moss that separated them from the others.  Stiles wouldn't have to work very hard to be annoying.

"Then can we just _go outside_?"

Hutch looked over at him.  "How is _shut up_ hard for you to understand?"

"You wanted a trade," pressed Stiles. "Can we just go do that now?"

Frustrated, Hutch crossed the room toward him, intent on something that probably wasn't going to end well for Stiles.  Melissa stepped around and distracted Hutch with a completely unpredictable punch to the jaw; no one expected the mouse in the nursing scrubs to attack someone six inches taller than herself.  Jules was on her in seconds, which left Hutch to Stiles.  He couldn't do much in handcuffs but he worked with what he had.  He shoved the hunter toward the wall, momentum working with him.  Hutch recovered and Stiles dodged him like a rodeo clown up against the big bull. He taunted Hutch while Melissa held her own with Jules.  Stiles backed into the wall, his shoe dragging across the dirt floor.  He smiled.

"Well, crap, I'm out of the circle again," he said.  Hutch headed for him.  Melissa managed to shove Jules into Hutch.  Stiles reacted as they tangled.  Arms tucked to protect his ribs, he jumped over the weak spot in the floor and rolled, knocking the two hunters down like bowling pins.  Melissa tugged Stiles back as the floor gave out under Hutch and Jules.  The crash was noisy and dusty.  Stiles coughed, favored his aching ribs as he let Melissa tug him to his feet.

"Come on," she said, hurried.  "Where's the back door to this place?"

Stiles only had a rough idea of where it was but it was better than trying the front porch after that noise.  They ran from the room as the front door opened.  The room wrapped around to what used to be the kitchen.  Low, broken sun-windows were protected by the back porch and just right for a hasty escape.  Stiles had never in his life been more thankful for acts of expensive vandalism as he helped Melissa climb out while avoiding the remaining shards in the dark.

"Go, I got it," he said when she turned to help.  She turned and ran for the trees as Stiles lifted his bound arms to catch the window edge up above his head and pull himself through.  That's when he saw the problem in his earlier logic.  Pain.  Lots of it.  It started in his ribs and radiated up and when he grabbed the window ledge there wasn't enough strength to hang on.  Stiles fell amid more dust and heard more than felt the crunch of glass against his back.

 

*0*0*


	27. Chapter 27

There were only four men who met Stilinski's shout: Mark and his two wolves and someone Derek had never seen before.  And in the moments following the crash, that number dropped down to three.  Stiles and Melissa were nowhere to be seen, which put them at the source of the noise inside.  Derek chased after Mark, shoving past the three guards left on the porch.  Peter caught a sparking baton to the gut when he tried to do the same, but from the sounds of it, that only made him mad.

Derek slid into the well-lit living room and immediately saw the hole in the floor.  He flared up slightly, too aware of the other werewolves in the house that he couldn't see, but he had to be sure Melissa and Stiles weren't in the basement.  Peter made it into the room as Derek got close enough to peek down inside.

"Are they in there?" he asked.  Derek shook his head, staring down at the blonde woman lying broken amid the splintered boards.  She wasn't their concern.  He and Peter both turned toward the back, catching a scent to chase.

 

*0*0*

 

It seemed like every tree had a restless teenager taking cover behind it.  Scott looked back out at the house, frustrated by the standoff between sides on the porch.  There was nothing he could do about it until he knew where his mom was; too much could go wrong, so he followed the lead of the men closer to the situation.  They waited to find out what in the house had collapsed.  And if it collapsed on his mom or Stiles then he planned to tear the Hutchinsons' crew into small pieces whether Stilinski and Argent liked it or not.

His impatient schemes were brought to an early end by noise, running boots and crunching leaves and somebody said his name.  Scott looked back through the trees again, this time seeing Allison running toward him.  With his mom.  The relief didn't last long.  Isaac trailed behind them but Stiles wasn't with them.

Scott still grabbed his mom in a hug first thing, just to reassure himself she was really there.

"What happened? Where's -"

"He was right behind me, but then when I got to the cars I saw he wasn't..." Melissa shook her head.  "I don't know what happened."

Scott waited for Stiles to magically appear from behind a tree, just for a moment, but it didn't happen.  His mom caught his arm as she watched the house.

"Did Chris bring along a spare .45?" Melissa asked.  Allison nodded and moved to the bags they had brought with them.  No sooner was it in her hand than Melissa was walking across the clearing.  Back toward the house.  Scott's eyes widened.

"Mom!" he called after her.  She didn't respond as she crossed the remains of the yard.  

Melissa held the gun out away from her, ready to aim at anything that needed it, but still pointed at the ground ahead of her.   She squeezed the trigger and Scott flinched, not having expected the noise.  Then, as Peter and Derek rushed out of the house, Scott realized what she was doing.  She was buying Stiles some time, pull the attention back from his trail.  He grinned.  Scott pointed Allison, Lydia and Danny toward the cars again.  Allison had flattened the tires on one, but three more still worked.

"Just cut across, disable their cars. We'll give them more targets, draw them out.  We know they've got more than four," he told them.  At the house,  Melissa was raising hell and the three hunters had been split up in a standoff with Melissa's pack.  They were five to three, and the only reason the hunters were still alive was the missing Stiles.

As Isaac went with Allison, Scott, Cora and the twins separated from the trees and moved toward the house in the opposite direction.  Mark wasn't on the porch, probably still looking for Stiles, so that was their target.

 

*0*0*

 

Peter advanced too close to the hunter.  The man fell off the porch, shooting as he went down.  As Peter went after his man, Derek's eyes flashed red and he went for the two he had cornered.  Chris took advantage of the distraction and yanked one of the two men backwards off the porch.

Derek and Peter had a werewolf each and Chris was in a bare-knuckles fight with a hunter.  Derek didn't have time to really dwell on that in the middle of his own fight, but it surprised him.

Claws and fangs in play, Derek and the hunter tossed each other around the porch.  There were boundaries, like the cage fight, but wood beams broke easier than steel.  Derek had no qualms about putting the stranger through the wall of his house.

With the path to the front door cleared, Stilinski, Melissa and Talia ran inside.  Derek let out a roar, frustration adding to his anger at the werewolf who wouldn't just _die_ already.  Mark's beta was not who he wanted to be fighting.  But Peter and Derek both had trouble dispatching their opponents; they had all been trained by the same alpha.

 

*0*0*

 

Stiles was well on his way to being able to ignore pain.  It was just a constant now and he filed it away in the back of his mind, locked up and not quite as important as avoiding the fate of a slashed throat.  He stumbled where Mark dragged him, claws digging into his neck, and kept his feet under him.

They were headed for the driveway and the cars, which didn't make Stiles feel any better about the odds of living to see his next birthday.  He swore out loud and started dragging his feet when he saw something, well, really _awesome_ and yet completely _bad-news_ standing in the back of one of the hunters' trucks:  Allison with a bow, an arrow notched and aimed at Mark.  Danny and Lydia stood behind the truck for cover - who the _hell_ thought it was a good idea to give his _Lydia_ a gun?! Stiles needed to have words with them. - and Isaac stood in front.  

Mark was pissed off but not intimidated.  He yanked on Stiles' neck and made a nice Stiles-sized shield for himself.

"Well... This is awkward.  Thanks for this," snarked Stiles, bitter.  He tested the give he had to move around Mark's hold and instantly regretted it.  And that was how he ended up on the wrong side of the fight, staring down his friends instead of helping them.  He was completely out of ideas.

"Unless you intend to shoot your friend... Drop the weapons in the truck," said Mark.  The man stepped back, his grip tightened on Stiles' neck, and then there was a handgun at his shoulder.  Mark used Stiles as a shield and as post to steady his aim on Allison.

Stiles didn't have a chance to worry about the hearing loss in his immediate future.  He saw another hunter coming around the back of one of the cars.  Lydia was the man's closest target.  Stiles instinctively tried to dodge toward the threat but was pulled quickly back to where Mark wanted his shield to be.

"Lydia!  Look ou-"

There was a blood curdling scream, Lydia's way of warning the man off, and then a gunshot.  Lydia remained on her feet, the gun in her hands still aimed, but the hunter staggered back.  Still alive and badly wounded, he hit the ground and stayed, sitting up with a look of shock on his face.  In the distraction, Isaac shifted and charged at Mark.  Stiles dragged into Mark's hold on him, stumbled back and tried to hit the ground to give Isaac a better shot at the other wolf.  It didn't work.  He was dragged into a headlock instead.  Isaac jumped off course at the last possible second and narrowly avoided being shot.

 

*0*0*

 

The shouting and gunshots drew Scott, Cora, Ethan and Aiden away from the back off the house and off toward the cars.  Melissa and Talia and the sheriff appeared on the back porch and Talia vaulted down to the ground, racing the teens to the source.

They found Lydia, Danny, and Allison pinned down among the hunters' vehicles, Isaac on the outside and just as helpless.  Mark stood to the side, Stiles blocking any clear shots from Allison's bow.  Lydia and Danny each held a hunter at bay with their weapons and couldn't afford to worry about Mark.

Scott started to charge at Mark but Aiden held him back.  He wouldn't risk Lydia yet.

"Now what, Mark?" called Melissa.  Scott looked back over his shoulder to see his mom walking toward them.  The sheriff stayed with her, and Scott had never seen the man so angry in his life.  Chris caught up to them then and Scott had never seen that man so roughed up.

"You've got two men left.  You're out numbered and down two werewolves."  Melissa pointed back toward the house, just as Derek and Peter jogged around the front of it.  “ _Your_ pack is down.”

"And you've got a kid to bargain with.  Not a wolf, just a kid," said Chris.  "Are you so far gone you've forgotten why we hunt in the first place?"

"Oh, shut up, Chris," returned Mark.  "You're the one who's _gone_.  Your father would be ashamed.  Your sister... God, do you know what Kate would say about this?"  Mark pointed to where Talia stood, between Chris and the sheriff.

"I don't really care," said Chris.  

Scott startled when his mom stepped past him, out in front and walking toward Mark.  Aiden growled but still held him back.

"Here's your shot at a trade, Mark," said Melissa. "You get one shot at me, one chance at my pack, but you damn well won't get it with you and your men hiding behind teenagers."

 

*0*0*


	28. Chapter 28

Derek seethed.  He couldn’t get near Stiles without endangering him, and now Melissa was gambling with everything they had to fix Derek’s mistake of leaving him alone.  Cora pressed at his shoulder, a reminder that he had to let it go.  He broke the pack line and moved to offer Melissa back-up.  If Mark wanted the pack, he could try.  He would fail, but they would get Stiles back in the bargain.

Talia joined him at Melissa's shoulder, making the deal that much more enticing for Mark.  He looked to the hunters who had penned Lydia, Danny and Allison in between the trucks.   One of them backed off and Allison jumped down from the truck.  Danny herded Lydia out and toward the rest of the pack.  

"You forgot one," Melissa said with a nod toward Stiles.  The teenager seemed to have stopped breathing in his efforts at being forgotten and left alone and Derek growled, taking a step forward.  Melissa looked back at him, then over at Talia.

"Back off," she cautioned.  The pack reluctantly gave her space and she returned her attention to Mark.  Derek set a knee to the grass, deferring to the order despite a very intense need to be moving.

 

*0*0*

 

The relief Stiles felt to be standing on his own again, flat footed and no longer choked in a headlock, didn't really hold.  Mark shoved him toward Melissa and Stiles moved.  He kept himself between them as long as he could, stalling the fight that Melissa had invited because of him.  He couldn't even look at Scott.

When he got in reach, Melissa caught his hand and squeezed.  It was probably supposed to make him feel better about it, but it failed pretty hard.  Then Derek was in his space, herding Stiles toward the pack.  He was tucked behind Scott and his dad had to let him out of handcuffs and he felt about six inches tall as he and the others watched Melissa square off with a werewolf.

"One chance," Melissa called out.  "After that, you're fair game."

Now _that_... that made Stiles feel better.  He stood up a little taller and waited with the others.  It was like an old west showdown, twenty paces between and each of them were armed.  Bullets could do as much damage as a werewolf toward the endgame but Melissa had better odds that Mark would miss with a handgun in the dark than with claws or teeth.  After that one shot, Scott, Derek and the others would be on Mark like wolves on a rabbit.  Just _one_ shot...

Except Mark didn't take the shot.  Melissa took several shots, half of them hitting their targets as Mark rushed toward her.  He swiped at her and she dodged, hitting the ground in a heap.  It felt like the whole pack felt the blow.  And then it was gone; her fall was the cue they were waiting for and they rushed at Mark as a pack.  Stiles and Scott pulled Melissa free as the Hales chased Mark back.  The twins and Isaac chased the other hunters into the woods.  

His dad and Chris moved Stiles out of the way as they saw to Melissa.  She was bleeding and all Stiles could do was offer up a dirty overshirt to help stop it.  Allison, Danny and Lydia rushed to find the backpacks Chris and Talia had brought in search of a First Aid kit.  Stiles kept watch, the warning system in case of any surprise attacks.  Mostly he just watched the Hales square off with Mark across the yard nearer the house.  

It wasn’t much of a fight to witness.  The gun Melissa had used was loaded with the Argent-blend for ammo.  Four shots of wolfsbane, center-mass, and Mark was looking pretty rough.  The four Hale wolves surrounded him, staying clear amid snarls and snaps to keep him from the rest of the pack.  He had been shot by another alpha, poisoned and injured in one move; everyone knew he wasn’t going anywhere.  Mark seemed to figure that out.  

Mark made the suicide-move, going after Talia.  Derek charged for the intercept but pulled back as Talia took the fight on her own.  She fought dirty, going for the injuries Melissa had already made and shredding Mark.  Stiles approved wholeheartedly in the dark where he couldn’t see the blood from so far away but he still watched and worried.  Talia finally slammed Mark to the ground and kept him there.  She knelt at his shoulder, her claws at his neck to keep him down, and watched him.  She just _watched_ him.

“Why?” Stiles blurted quietly.  “She’s got him!  Just... take him out...”

“She won and he knows it.  That’s enough,” said Chris, surprising Stiles into remembering he was supposed to be keeping watch for _them_.  Chris looked over at Stiles and then his dad, shaking his head.  “Your son has a thing for bloodshed that’s starting to worry me.”  He and the sheriff crouched under a flashlight held by Lydia, trying to stop blood loss, their arms covered in Melissa’s blood.  Stiles had to back off when he realized the darkness wasn’t just the flashlight casting strange shadows.  His attention was drawn back to the werewolves and he saw Mark start to cough.  And it was _more_ blood, _okay, great_... Then Talia swiped across Mark’s neck and backed off.  It was done.  

And Stiles had to run to the end of the truck the others were crowded against, before he was sick, or worse, fainted.

  
*0*0*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I ended up with a busted ankle and the last two days off work, so... Tahdah! It's finally done!!


	29. Chapter 29

There were two bodies on their property, strangers who had caused the family so much pain over the years.  It was going to be hard to explain, but Derek didn’t care.  They had trespassed, walked into one of Beacon Hills’ now famous animal attacks, and that was all he’d say to anybody about it.  When his mom and sister walked away, Derek followed.  Peter followed a little slower, a step behind and probably pouting.  Derek crowded his mom’s space with his sister until Talia moved to take Stilinski’s place at Melissa’s side.  She was awake and hurting, but alert.  Scott was helping with the pain and looked like he had been at it a little too long.  Talia cautioned him off of it.

“Don’t push yourself too far, Scott,” Talia said.  “We still have to get her to the hospital.”

Derek glanced over at where the sheriff was pacing not far away, on the cell phone to get an ambulance on the way.  There would also be a team to search the woods for the hunters who had run, including the one that Lydia had shot in the leg.  The place was going to be crawling with people Derek didn’t want to deal with.

Which reminded him about the federal agent who had tailed them into the woods.  Derek started around the truck to go look out at the woods, derailing course entirely when he found Stiles sitting on the front fender of the suburban with flat tires.

“What are you doing over here?” Derek asked.  Stiles startled from his zone-out staring at the house, relaxed when he saw who was talking to him.  He shrugged and nodded back toward the impromptu triage area three cars over.

“Blood... Somebody pulled out a flashlight... figured I didn’t need to add concussion to everything else,” said Stiles.  Derek fought a smile and sat down next to him on the bumper.

“Don’t look in a mirror until we can get your neck cleaned up,” he advised.  Stiles sagged a little, defeated.

“It’s done now, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Derek.  Stiles nodded and coughed a little.

“Next time I need a babysitter and I try to say I _don’t_...”

“I kick your ass,” agreed Derek.

Movement caught their attention over by the trees and they both stood up.  Stiles pointed.

“Is that...” he began.  Derek nodded, answering before the question was asked.  Stiles swore.  “But I thought he hit the basement... oh.”  Tunnels.  Right.

Hutch walked out of the woods toward the house, accompanied by none other than Kyle McCall.  Ethan, Aiden and Isaac trailed behind, gloating grins on their faces.

“What the hell...” muttered Stiles.  Derek caught his arm and tugged him along.

“Let’s go find out.”

Kyle walked along beside Hutch because he was escorting the handcuffed and stoop-shouldered man.  If it had been anyone other than Kyle McCall who had done the honors of arresting him, Derek might have been tempted to inflict damage while Hutch was such an easy target, but Kyle wouldn’t let him get away with it.  As it was, Kyle walked up to them, shined a flashlight at them and then nearly tripped.

“Stiles?” he asked.  “What the hell happened to you?”

Stiles looked stiffly over at Derek.  “Seriously? It’s that bad?”

Derek nodded and plucked at the messy collar of Stiles’ shirt.  “Blood.  Don’t look down.”

Stiles paled and looked back to Kyle.  He pointed at Hutch.  “Him and his brother happened.”

“Not surprised.  Asshole tried to shoot Isaac,” said Kyle.  He shoved at Hutch’s shoulder.  “You’re going to have a very long, very unhappy night, pal.”

Derek snorted.  Stiles looked like he might injure something.  Kyle had no idea how long the night had already been.  Somehow it seemed Stiles let whatever set him off slide and he held up a hand to keep Kyle from going anywhere.

"Look, you should probably have the heads up anyway..." Stiles said, frustration contained to forced calm. " _They_ tried to kill Melissa.  She shot the guy but he got her good first..."

"What? Where is..." Before Kyle’s question was even out, Stiles pointed toward the trucks parked up the hill beyond the house.  "Is Scott-"

"Scott's kind of watching his mom bleed-out right now, so no, pretty sure he's not okay," interrupted Stiles. "Ambulance is on the way."

If it was possible for by-the-book Agent Kyle McCall to kick the ass of someone in his custody, that news would have done it.  Isaac stepped in however, smiled at Hutch as he interrupted Kyle's focus.

"We found a place earlier, you can lock him up until the cops get here," he said helpfully.  The twins grinned and nodded.  Kyle didn't notice the obvious trouble and nodded quickly.  They could have dropped Hutch in the river then and Kyle was distracted enough he wouldn't have noticed.

"Fine," said Kyle.  "Where?"

The others were all too happy to show him and the troop moved around Stiles and Derek like they weren't even there. Derek raised a brow and turned to look where they went.  Isaac marched right to the dead suburban and Stiles let out a laugh that was somewhere between approval and questioning-his-own-sanity.  He looked at Derek and shook his head.

"Fine with me," he said.

Derek nodded. "I was going to tell McCall about that anyway."

Stiles nodded and Derek noted he was being quiet.  Before he could ask, Stiles stepped in to lean on him and buried his face against his shoulder.  Derek let him, even lifted a hand to rest against Stiles' neck to ease off some of the teen's pain. While the pack kept track of Melissa and Scott, they stood in the dark for a moment's peace.

 

*0*0*

 

Stilinski just happened to look up at the the wrong moment.  He had called everyone he could call, he had done everything he could for Melissa, now he just had to step back and let those most familiar with werewolf-inflicted injuries do what they knew best.  But it was just one more frustration on top of the pile.  He looked up to where Stiles had been sitting and instead saw Hutch, surrounded by werewolves, getting the perp-walk.

"Oh hell no," said Stilinski.  It was the final straw learning that the man had somehow escaped his brother’s fate.  The sheriff headed for the kids, intending to get his hands on at least one of the men responsible for the past week.  He tracked Stiles, saw Derek was with him, and somehow seeing them made it worse.  The shadow that was his son was slumped and worn and beaten and there was nothing _okay_ about that.

Stilinski stormed around the cars and shoved Hutch against the side of the suburban, taking him from Ethan without the slightest protest from the teen.  It wasn't until after he had broken the hunter's nose that he noticed Kyle with the group.  The agent didn't say anything, silently steaming at the open truck tailgate.  Isaac tentatively set a hand to Stilinski's shoulder.

"Done yet?" he asked.  Stilinski glanced at Kyle and then back at Hutch.

"No," he growled.  But he shoved the hunter toward the teenager anyway.

He stood behind them as they loaded Hutch into the man's own little moving jail cell, Hutch whining about police brutality the whole time.  Stilinski stepped in before they closed the gate, flicked the switch on the top.  

"I left my badge at home, asshole," the sheriff said.  He slammed the tailgate then and headed back to check on Melissa.  He could hear the sirens in the distance and they still had to sell Kyle on the non-supernatural version of events.

 

*0*0*

 

There was practically no room in the ambulance but Stilinski convinced the EMTs to _make_ room for Talia to ride back with Scott.  Scott didn’t know what to do, was still somewhere between shocked and angry to the point of being afraid to move half the time.  If he moved too much, he could hurt somebody _very_ easily, but if he moved at all it would mean leaving his mom and he wasn’t willing to do that.  

Talia coached Scott’s hand into hanging on to Melissa’s whenever there wasn’t a tech in the way checking connections to breathing masks and IV’s.  She was calm and confident that Melissa would be fine.  Something Scott didn’t understand at all because there were gashes from claw marks that started at his mom’s back and wrapped up and around to her ribs and the back of her arm and all of the blood... and he couldn’t fix it.  He had worn himself out just trying to take some of her pain away.  

What good was supernatural- _anything_ if he couldn’t fix _this_?  

But there was Talia, patiently insisting that he could.  So he tried, because he didn’t know what else to do.  His mom squeezed his hand back to show she was at least sort-of okay, and that was enough for him to hang on to.

At the hospital, he was met by his pack, and his mom’s pack, and his family.  And everyone worried then, except Talia, and Lydia (out in public, in a camouflage baseball cap, looking nothing like herself), and Stiles told him it would be okay.  Then Derek said it, and then Cora, and Scott was pretty sure he’d go insane if anyone else promised something like that again.  The night had gone strangely surreal on him.

He got the message though and started to believe it.  His mom worked here; this was _her_ territory.  None of the people helping her would let her down.  The three packs took up an entire waiting room, just to make sure they were there for her.  People who a month earlier barely knew who she was were just short of climbing over nurses’ desks to get status reports.  They all felt what was wrong and each worked in their own way to get it fixed.  Even Peter freakin’ Hale, who managed to keep the annoying and the creepy down to an unnoticeable level as he paced the floor.

It took Scott about an hour to process everything, but when he did, a hopeful grin snuck on to his face everytime he looked around the waiting area.  There was no way his mom didn’t feel _all_ of this.

*0*0*


	30. Chapter 30

Stiles was pretty sure the only reason they were allowed to stay - _everyone!_ \- past visiting hours was werewolf charm, applied in triplicate by the eldest members of the Hale clan.  The nurse who tried to shoo them out didn't really have a chance.  Which meant that, here and there around the waiting room were dirty, bloody, sleeping teenagers in uncomfortable chairs.  It wasn't ideal, but when Melissa was shuffled into a room, mostly-stable and stitched up, they found there wasn't enough space for everyone to camp out in her room.  So Scott, Talia, Chris and the sheriff stayed in with Melissa - breaking every rule ever and _getting away with it_ \- and everyone else sat ten feet down the hall.  Peter roamed between the groups, keeping tabs on everyone.

Over the course of the early morning hours, Stiles slumped against Derek and slept almost as much as Melissa did, with Lydia keeping careful watch in the chair on his other side.   If he had been more aware he probably would have been on the _extremely_ side of self-conscious, but it hardly registered.  And Derek bossed the twins and Danny into sitting near them, all signs pointing to the alpha hitting overprotective mode on the corner he held sway over in the unified pack.  It wasn't just Stiles being mother-henned, even though he was the only one injured.

By six AM, Melissa woke up long enough to tell them to all go home and get real sleep.  Since she went right back to a medically-assisted dreamland after that, nobody actually chose to hear that particular command from their injured territory alpha.  The non-wolves were particularly good at exercising selective hearing.

Melissa was moved out of the ICU around nine AM, some eight hours after being admitted.  She got a bigger room, two beds but no roommate, and was instantly inundated with a relocated pack.  Stiles gloated that it was now Melissa's turn to suffer werewolves' versions of babysitting and then promptly fell asleep with his head pillowed on his arms on the corner of her bed and the rest of him stretched into a chair.  He didn't remember much of the morning after that.

It was a little after one-thirty that Melissa woke up for good.  And once she got in her pack-hugs and manly-fist-bumps and a couple of kisses, she ordered everyone home, and she meant it that time.   _Her_ pack selectively applied the order to everyone not _them_ and stayed.  

The twins left with Lydia and Allison and somehow they fit Danny in the car too.  Isaac and Cora saw Scott home, but everyone knew he would be back in an hour.  Just long enough to clean up and lie to his mom that he had slept.  They took the sheriff's car that they had used the day before because Isaac still had the keys.  Which left Derek and Stiles without a car, and a Chris Argent who was feeling strangely benevolent enough to let Derek drive Stiles home.  The day was approaching sci-fi levels of weird but Stiles didn't argue.

The walk to the parking lot was more work than Stiles thought it was worth and he leaned against the car while Derek unlocked the passenger door for him.  Derek raised an eyebrow.

"Should we be leaving without checking you in?" he asked.

"God yes," said Stiles.  "Home.  I wanna go home."

Derek nodded but wasn't reassured.  "Let me see," he said, plucking at Stiles' shirt over the colorful ribs that had taken a worse beating overnight.

"What, you alpha-X-ray _me_ now?" Stiles asked.  Still, he tugged his shirt up enough to pass on permission to be checked over.

"Yep," replied Derek, his eyes flashing red.  After a moment of looking, he set a palm to it.  Stiles met his gaze then, relaxed a little.

"Thanks," he said.  Derek nodded.  He started to pull away but Stiles caught his hand.  "No, I mean it, you idiot.  Don't eye-roll out of this one."

Derek huffed, amused by the belligerence.  "What am I supposed-"

Stiles wasn't sure who was surprised more: Derek by the kiss smack on the lips, or himself for having done it.  When he pulled back, Derek stared at him, eye to eye and not finding anything else more important to be doing just then.  Until he took Stiles' faint grin as the invitation it was and very carefully pinned Stiles back against the van.  Never in Stiles' wildest reaches of his imagination had he expected that his first trip around second base would be with Derek Hale, in the parking lot of the hospital, against Chris Argent's SUV.  Although the hospital part of the equation wasn't a big surprise.

When they broke for air, Stiles was mentally not-present.  He stood and stared at Derek until his higher level thought processes came back online.  Then he blinked.

“For the record,” he said, "This doesn't make me a damsel in distress hooking for saviors.  The _thank you_ was totally separate from the... _That_.  Different."

Derek let out a quietly frustrated growl that Stiles was pleased to realize he had heard many times before, usually aimed at him.

"In the car," Derek ordered.  Stiles had to adjust a minute after he pulled away but he tracked him as Derek moved around the front of the truck.

"We are so resuming this conversation at my house," he called over the door.  He got in and even buckled up without being growled at.

"That was a conversation?" said Derek.  He slid in behind the wheel and Stiles felt jittery, like a caffeine overdose.  He nodded.

"Yeah.  Everybody knows everything they need to now," returned Stiles.  Like exactly how long Derek had wanted to do that.  Answer: _since day one_.  Derek looked over at him, one bushy eyebrow lifted.

"Everything?" he asked.  Stiles grinned like the little-shit he would always be.  Derek didn’t seem impressed.  "Fine.  What's my favorite color?"

Stiles _melted_ at the notion that Derek’s-favorite-anythings were now in the category of _need-to-know_.  Best Research Project Ever.  "Blue?"  It was a total guess but the look on Derek's face said he nailed it.  Stiles beamed.  Derek was quiet as they left the parking lot.

"One problem," he said finally.  The grin was back and Stiles was slightly worried.  "If you know everything, we don't need to have any more _conversations_ , do we?"

Stiles froze.  "Nothing.  I know _nothing_."

 

*0*0*

 

In the relative quiet of Melissa's hospital room, the injured alpha kept herself awake to check in with her team.  She had a lot that she wanted to ask about but was a little low on the energy for it.  Instead, she held on to Casey's hand on one side and let Talia safeguard her injured side.  The woman kept a hand at Melissa's wrist, occasionally helping her fight off the pain, which Melissa was silently in awe of.  She was a nurse and she couldn't do that.  Talia did it naturally, automatically, like she could sense when Melissa needed it most.  Melissa felt a pang of guilt at needing it at all.

"Wasn't quite ready for the fight I went for," she finally said, as close to an apology as she would let herself get.  They had won; she wouldn't be sorry for that.

Talia shook her head and shrugged.  "You can't be ready.  Not until you're in it."  

Casey and Chris nodded in agreement.  "But you did great for not knowing what the hell you were doing," said Chris.  

"Except for this part.  Next time..." added Stilinski.  He motioned to the hospital room around them.  Melissa shook her head adamantly, tugged on his hand.

"Werewolf," she reminded him.  She pointed toward her bandaged side.  "And I'm not dead.  I'll take this outcome if there's a next time."

"There will be," Peter warned from where he stood across the room.  "You're gonna make waves.  They flock like fleas."

Melissa frowned.  "Not a fan of this notion."

"You wanted the territory," said Peter.  He shrugged.  Melissa pulled a haughty look at his challenge and lifted her nose in the air a little.  Peter huffed, infinitely amused by her stubborn streak.

"Fine,” said Melissa.  “I still want the territory.  I’ll take what it dishes out then."

Chris glanced from her to Talia and Melissa caught the look.  She was in no condition to defend her stakes now, her injured side weak and the rest of her feeling the pain.  She had a hard time just catching Talia’s hand away from her wrist to trap under her palm.  It drew Talia’s attention to her again.  The perceptive former alpha seemed to read from her expression the question Melissa didn’t know how to ask.

“No, I don’t miss it at all,” said Talia.  She looked between Melissa, the sheriff and Chris but went nowhere near her inquisitive brother’s gaze.  “It’s enough that I’m here.  I trust you with what I lost; you’ll get no challenge from me for it.  Any of it.”

The promise was met with relief from the original members of Melissa’s pack, a resigned sigh from Peter.  Melissa narrowed her eyes at him for it.  Peter shrugged.  “Okay, so I _hoped_.  Shoot me.”

Melissa grinned despite herself.  “I think I’d rather learn how to fight,” she said.  She had enough of shooting people; it went against everything in her but it allowed her to defend her new family.  That didn’t mean she looked forward to having to do it ever again.  “I think I’ll get Scott to teach me.”

Peter laughed out loud and even Chris cleared his throat and shook his head slightly.  Melissa bristled and then frowned.  Talia and Casey were no help at all, looking in mild surprise at Chris.

“Not Scott?” Melissa asked.

“Not Scott,” Chris assured them.  

“Peter and I then,” said Talia.  She turned her hand under Melissa’s to lightly brush her thumb over the bruises on Melissa’s knuckles and fingers from the bad punch that had distracted Hutch back at the house.  She held it up as an illustration of the importance of what they were discussing.  “We need to be sure at a minimum that this at least won’t happen again.”

Casey frowned again and Melissa worried that the man’s expression was going to become permanently marred.  He nodded toward her injuries.  

“I think for awhile you’re going to need a babysitter of your own,” he said.  

“Yes, because a babysitter has kept Stiles out of _so much_ trouble,” said Melissa, surprised.  She already didn’t like the idea.  Peter pounced on it though.  He raised a hand.

“I volunteer.”

Melissa shook her head.  “You’re still stalking Kyle for me,” she said.  She pulled her hand from Stilinski to raise a point-of-fact that she would not be letting go of any time soon.  “And at no time did I agree to a babysitter.”

“McCall’s shifted his focus,” Chris offered up.  “Casey talked to him a few hours ago.  He’s pissed, and it’s not at Allison anymore.”

Peter smiled broadly.  “See?  There.  My schedule is wide open again.  I volunteer.”

Talia smirked.  Casey opened his mouth to disapprove.  Chris shook his head and leaned his face into his palm.  Melissa glowered at Casey for ever mentioning the notion of babysitters.  Because if there was anything she knew about the Hales - Peter in particular - it was that they didn’t give up.

  
*0*0*


	31. Chapter 31

The kids didn't exactly throw a welcome home party with all the trimmings, but the three packs converged on the McCall house when Melissa was finally allowed to go home almost a week later.  The good sheriff bailed on his job when Talia called from the hospital to ask for a ride once the last check-up was done.  He had used lights and siren to get there faster.  Melissa had sighed and hid a grin behind her hand as she was wheeled out to the passenger seat of the sheriff's vehicle from the hospital lobby.  

Her front porch was crowded with bored teenagers as they drove up in the driveway.  It was cold out, gray clouds just low enough that it might rain on them later, and the kids waited on the porch in clusters.  Melissa saw her son parked on the doorstep, Cora sitting at his shoulder and Isaac standing against the wall next to him.  Allison and Lydia had taken the plastic chairs because Stiles had taken over the swing for himself in his usual sprawl.  He shared with Derek but looked rather possessive of the overall arrangement.  Ethan and Aiden sat on the steps, bookends to Danny and an iPad.

Melissa buried her face in her free hand.  "All I did was send Scott a text."

Chris’ SUV pulled up to the curb, blocking in the sheriff’s cruiser without a second’s concern for the legality of doing so and he was just walking up as Casey helped Melissa out.  She grinned at him.  

“Really?  You too?” she asked.  Chris shrugged, the corner of his lips twisting up.  Very aware of Chris Argent’s personal-space issues, Melissa stepped in to give him a one-armed hug anyway.  He allowed it, but he wasn’t very practiced at it.  Since they were in the way, the sheriff nodded Chris’ attention toward the back seat of the cruiser as he tried to steer Melissa toward the house.  She could walk fine but he was mother-henning and Melissa understood Stiles’ recent irritation with the man.  She also understood where Stiles got it from now.

“Child-locks.  Would you mind...” Casey motioned in a directionless wave between Melissa and the house and Talia, still waiting patiently to be let out.

“Child-locks.  Explains that.  For a minute I thought my dad had this serious thing for locking Hales in cars,” came Stiles’ lilting voice from the porch.  “It’s not healthy...”

“Agreed,” added both Derek and Cora quietly.

Melissa looked up to see the teenagers had all gotten to their feet and were waiting for the medicated-and-buzzy Melissa to make it to them.  With the sheriff at her injured side, Scott was the only one who crowded her and she was thankful for that.  He ducked immediately under her arm as though she needed carried and Melissa’s smile got so wide her cheeks ached.

“I don’t need carried, Scott,” she said.  Her injured arm was bound up in a sling over her shoulder and she gave it an illustrative wave.  “I was _winged_.”

“Yeah, well, there’s steps...” The weak argument was made with an impish grin and Melissa just hugged her son’s neck and lowered it down to an easier height, one less likely to have him trying to pick her up.  Danny gave her a high-five as she stepped by him, her arm still over Scott’s shoulder to keep him pretending to be shorter than her.  She marched up the steps with her son in a headlock and let him go when she could trade him in for Stiles.  And then Lydia and Allison.  Isaac tried to get her to settle for a fist-bump before he caved too.  There was a sense of relief among the group and Melissa was using the one-time-only excuse of being a medicated homecoming-hero to show her appreciation for it.

“You could have waited inside,” she pointed out to them in her lighter Mom-voice.  Stiles shook his head.

“No way,” he said.  “Safer out here.”

At Melissa’s suspicious look, Danny offered up helpfully, “Aiden made spaghetti.  Certain people kept sampling things.  It was getting pretty ugly.”

Melissa looked at Scott, whose expression was far too innocent to actually be guilt-free.  She shoved lightly at his shoulder.  “ _In_ , you.”

 

*0*0*

 

The dinner crowd thinned out by a set of twins and their currently very-significant others.  Lydia and Danny had to get home sometime before Christmas.  Aiden and Ethan just followed them around like puppies with fangs and claws that could kill an elephant.  Very big puppies, reasoned Scott, but still.  He tried very hard not to notice that Isaac and Allison had disappeared at some point too.  

 _Everyone_ had pairs now.  Stiles had followed Derek everywhere for the last week.  He talked about him, more than usual, and not in the _Derek Hale is out to ruin everybody's lives_ tone that conversation topic had started out in a year and a half ago.  Scott tried not to say anything.  He had to work really hard not to cover his ears.  Stiles was just Stiles, however bendy that meant, but Derek was a werewolf; an alpha, capable of _killing_ people who pissed him off, and Stiles could piss _everybody_ off.  Especially Derek.  It made no sense to Scott.  He couldn't see it and he went out of his way not to.  But he had to admit, Derek smiled a lot more lately.  He just had one more reason to apparently and _ohmygod_ did Scott get weirded out by that.

Cora was around more, but that was because Talia had stayed at the hospital with Melissa most of the time, so she said she had nothing to do.  So they did stuff together, with Allison and Isaac.  As a pack.  Scott had this very real, very cool thing going.  It was going to be weird when they went back to school after break, because he swore he could tell where any of the three were, in a general vicinity, and the urge to look for his pack was going to catch him right in the middle of a quiz or something.  He also instinctively knew where he could find his mom, a gut directional feeling and not just a label on the map.  Cora said that was an alpha thing, because he lived on Melissa's turf.  He had to know where everyone was if they were supposed to help each other.  Cell phones were a lot more reliable than Scott's mental map and compass though, he had to admit.

He sat on the couch with Stiles and Derek, trying not to listen to them argue about whether or not the chick with the dragons on the show they were half-watching could control the dire-wolves with her dragon-alpha powers.  Cora suddenly appeared at the back of the couch, crushing the pillow at his back as she leaned over his shoulder.

"Hey," she said.  Scott looked at her and silently mouthed _Shoot me?_  Out loud he said, "Hey," back at her.

"I think we should go out," said Cora.  Scott did a double-take, not quite believing what he had so clearly heard.  Even Stiles lost track of his own argument and turned to blatantly stare.

"Out? Like, _out_ -out?" asked Stiles.  "Or, like, more architecturally philosophical?"

Cora rolled her eyes.  She glared down at Stiles, who startled back into Derek's shoulder briefly.  He held up his hands innocently.  

"What?" he asked.  "You're in _my_ ear too. I was just asking."

Scott grinned, strangely grateful to Cora for quieting his best friend for him.  Cora looked back to Scott.

"I'm bored.  I want out.  Your mom has a car," she said.  "Do you want to go out?"

Scott looked from Cora to the still stunned-Stiles.  Derek had the stony face back on, complete with one arched eyebrow.  There was no way Scott was going to stay on the couch to get glared at for Cora's question.

"Yep," he said quickly.  "Out is good."

Scott dodged over the arm of the couch and steered Cora toward the front hall.

 

*0*o*

 

When the alpha pulled rank and refused to be tucked back into bed early, - a free woman who finally escaped from the _hospital_ bed thank-you-very-much, - her scruffy betas, wolf and non-wolf, listened.  There was some fuss, but since most of it came from Stilinski, he was able to man-up and get over it.  He was very careful to sit at her injured side at the kitchen table, block any move she made that might maybe disturb stitches, and jumped up a lot to get anything she even hinted at wanting.  Except for alcohol, because, well, medications and impressionable teenagers in the house.  Otherwise, with the four adults sitting around the table, it was comfortable.

“Maybe we should call Peter back out,” said Melissa.  “One more and we’ve got enough for poker.”

“You do not want to play cards with that man,” said Talia.  Elbows on the table, she buried her face in her hands.  “It does not go well.”

“Why am I not surprised to find out that Peter cheats?” asked Stilinski.  Talia rolled her eyes.

“Worse than that.  He has the mentality of a teenager.  Give him half a chance and he still wagers clothing.”

The adults around the table exchanged a look, a contemplative grin and a shrug.

Stilinski gave a polite cough.  “Good to know...”

Melissa, still a little giggly from the hydrocodone, shifted in her chair enough that she could hide her smile in Casey’s shoulder.  Chris got up for another cup of coffee, grabbing Stilinski’s cup as he went since the man was a leaning post, and Melissa’s humor switched focus from Peter to the man’s sister.

“So.  Next order of business for us then has to be getting you a place, hmm?” she asked, looking to Talia.  “Now that you’re not camping out at the hospital with me twenty-four-seven like some kind of saint.”

Talia grinned and shrugged.  “No, now I’ll camp out here until you’re back up on your feet,” she said.  “I know better than to leave you to the mercies of two packs of teenagers unattended for awhile.”

“I approve of this arrangement, actually,” said Casey.

“You would,” said Melissa, smirking at him.  “Someone to split mother hen shifts with.”

“I’m not that bad,” he defended mildly.  Talia raised her brow at him.  When the woman who had more or less spent the last week babysitting the hospital-bound Melissa gave Casey _that_ look, he knew he really was _that_ bad.  “Okay, well, it’s not like I try...”

“Oh, you try,” Melissa said.  She grinned and shrugged.  Chris returned with the coffee then and Stilinski silently thanked him for the perfect timing as it sent Melissa’s attention back to Talia.  “So this week that’s what we’ll do, huh?  Look for places for you.  Or are you going to kick Peter out and take over the loft at Derek’s?”

Talia pulled a face and shook her head.  “No... really I think I want my own place.  Stiles set up that donation fund and already it looks like it’ll be enough to get me going somewhere.  I put in with the county to get the land back.  I’m still under the seven-years-gone line, and not being dead more or less negates the will.”

“You can’t stay at that house,” said Melissa.  That was her stance on the issue and it wouldn’t change.  “It’s the middle of winter and a good strong wind will bring it all down.”

“Yeah, when I get it back I’m going to have it leveled.”  The announcement was a quiet one.  Talia had put a lot of thought into it already.  It was a done-deal in her mind.  And she probably still had enough friends crawling out of the county wood-work lately to make sure it got done in record time, too.  Casey nodded, adding his support to the idea.

“So, once this media circus dies down, we get you your own place,” he said.  “It’s probably not a bad idea that you stay with one of us or the other until your name’s out of the paper more than two days in a row.”

Hiding a grimace, Talia nodded quickly.  “I still can’t believe I agreed to that.  It’s going to take forever to get that to go away.  This town hasn’t grown up at all.”

“Not at all,” Chris chimed in.  “Maybe the currents slow down time here, too.”

Casey raised an eyebrow at him for the profound, almost serious thought, and Chris shrugged it off.  Casey grinned viciously over the rim of his coffee mug and had to look away to Melissa.  She caught the mischief easily and grinned back.  

“Chris,” said Melissa with a forced calm.  “We’ve got it.”

“Got what?” asked Chris, wary.

Melissa’s grin didn’t fade and his suspicions only grew.  “Talia’s new place.”

Chris rolled his eyes as Talia joined him in his suspicions.  “We’ve already established that I don’t have a guest room.”

“Nope,” said Casey happily.  “But our old friend Duke left town a while ago.  The penthouse up over your place should be available by now, right?”

Chris choked on his coffee.  

  
  
*0*0*


	32. Chapter 32

Of the nine hunters who had come to town, three had been werewolves.   That was why Chris had only been _told_ about six.  And of the group, only two stuck around to be arrested; Hutch, and the man Chris had fought.  He had thought to handcuff the man to a support post.  Peter and Derek had ended their fights messy when they heard the noise from Mark, so Peter's healed and ran, and Derek's left a trail where he crawled away.  Kyle got two more off the vehicle registration of the cars parked at the Hale house.  He fingerprinted the inside of the Suburban and found the proof he needed to back up Stiles' report and quickly took the case from the sheriffs' department.  Two counts of kidnapping across state lines and two more for attempted murder? Yeah, Kyle McCall made a federal issue out of that.  

The media circus had been Stiles' idea.   _High-profile, local lawyer found alive after a six-year ordeal_.  The new trial of the century, for Beacon Hills anyway.  Out in the open was the only way to handle it, anything less would invite retaliation.  With her name in the press, Talia was too well-known to disappear again.  Talia hadn't been enthusiastic, but she agreed with the logic and let Kyle leak the story.  It was going to get around that she was back sooner or later, and media attention would save  awkwardness in the supermarket.  Stiles and Scott set up a donation page and everything.  Derek wanted to kill them, slowly and painfully, but he kind of couldn't so he didn't.  Stiles considered himself _brilliant_.  

In a matter of days, just over a week of them, a lot of things had changed.  Most all of it was for the better, but there was a sense of loss coloring it for Stiles.  Dividing lines had become a lot more clear for him over the past week and he wasn’t sure what to do with them.  They all blurred into one big pack, sure, but it no less changed how he looked at his group of almost-actually-friends that he had so quickly adopted as family.  Once Stiles adopted somebody, it was hard for him to let go, and now he had to deal with _politics_ if he wanted to bounce in between Derek’s pack, Scott’s pack, and the one his _dad_ was happily running with Melissa.  Change was complicated.

A fence blocked easy access to the Hale house now, making it look infinitely creepier than it was when hikers just stumbled into it unawares.  Derek tugged up a corner of chain-link near the gate.  Stiles clambered under it.  Then Derek climbed and jumped the fence, because he liked to show off, and he would snap at Stiles for trying it.  Stiles rolled his eyes and walked the incline to the house, figuring the parkour wolf would catch up.  He did and the area was quiet for awhile.

"It'll be weird when this isn't here," said Stiles.  "I mean, not to sound stupid, but the place has been here my whole life.  It'll be like finding out the boogeyman man doesn't exist."

Derek set his jaw and shook his head, somewhere between amused and offended.  "Do you ever just _listen_ to the words that come out of your mouth?"

"Come on!" Stiles shoved at his arm, half an apology in the effort.  "You know what I meant.  I've known you, what, not _even_ two years.  I've known the creepy Hale house _forever_."

"Not winning back any points," said Derek.

"Okay fine.  In bullet point summary: Stiles does not like change. Things are changing.  Stiles is wigged out."  He sat down on the porch steps and sighed.  "Better?  Did I make sense that time?"

Derek stood next to him, looking up at the house.  His only answer was to nudge Stiles' thigh with his knee as he looked around.  He made the mistake of turning his back and Stiles kneed him in the back of the leg to knock off his balance.  The end result was Derek sitting in Stiles lap on the steps.  And Stiles grinning.

"Did you really..."

"Revenge for the car ride," said Stiles.  He shrugged.  “And a few other things.”  Derek rolled his eyes at him, but Stiles considered it a triumph; Derek had a smile on his face even if he wouldn't admit to it out loud.  Stiles ducked his head to the shoulder tucked against his own and was surprisingly comfortable.  Derek wasn't as heavy as he was when soaking wet or dead-weight in the middle of a crisis.

"What are we even doing."  Derek didn't sound annoyed.  Just a little lost.  Stiles looked up at him.

"I don't know, but I kinda like it," he said.  He started to worry a little though and the defenses crept back up.  The hyper humor came out to get him in trouble again.  "If you don't have a clue, we are so screwed.  No resume experience, man, sorry."

Derek hadn't moved from where Stiles put him, but he seemed to drag a little and stared up at the sky.  He gave a huff, sounded amused.  "I can't say _that_ helped."

Stiles tugged at the front of Derek's shirt in an attempt to get his attention back.  He pulled his best I-am-an-Adorable-smart-ass face.  

"...but if it makes you feel any better about it, I'm not homicidal.  So it's a step in the right direction for you, right?"

Derek started to stand up and Stiles latched his arms around him to argue against the idea.  "It was a bad joke, I'm sorry," he said quickly.

Derek was surprised enough by the apology that he let Stiles tug him back down.

"This is what I mean," said Derek, his usual gruff self except for the part where he was in Stiles' lap.  "You are on a completely different track and..."

"Half the time you want to bounce my head off of walls because of it, I know, don't remind me," said Stiles.  "But the other half is pretty awesome lately.  And it's not just the pack stuff."

"How would you know?" asked Derek, brow raised in true Sourwolf fashion.

"I get away with a helluva lot more _everything_ than Aiden and Ethan," said Stiles.  He tugged his arms, still wrapped around Derek.  "I mean seriously, dude.  Ethan would kill for this.  He'd at least _know_ what he was _doing_ , but whatever.  I'm the one who gets away with it.  I get what _that_ means."

"Yeah?" Derek smirked at him, because he was a smart man and knew when facts had been called out.  "Then explain it to me, 'cause it makes no sense."

"So what?" said Stiles.  "What's it gotta make sense for?"

The question hit Derek mostly where Stiles wanted it to because he seemed to relax again.  Stiles rambled.

"We make more sense than Scott and Allison did.  There was nothing about that that made sense, trust me, I was there," he said.   _Slight_ exaggeration, but Stiles felt like he was defending his life and he grabbed whatever he could catch.  "My dad's not an Argent.  No bad hunter blood to get riled up."

"Your dad's a hunter, just not looking for _my_ hide yet," said Derek.

"Yeah, because he's doing _his_ alpha," said Stiles.  "There's no rules here that say I can't do mine."

Derek crumpled up in quiet laughter and Stiles took that as a really good sign.  It was an even better one when Derek tucked an arm behind him and leaned against him.

Of course it was a dirty trick, but Stiles didn't mind when Derek rolled them to the wet grass in front of the steps.  It was less of a roll and more of a very complicated, surprise wrestling move that Stiles flailed through.  One second he was pinning Derek, the next he was looking up at blue sky and an unreadable Derek.

"What?" he asked. "What's that face mean?"

The stoic expression lost to a grin and Derek shook his head.  "I don't even know," he admitted.

Derek stayed leaned over him, staring and watching from right up close.  Stiles realized belatedly that he was on his back and Derek had easy access to indefensible parts, his neck and chest unguarded against a werewolf's claws or teeth.  He felt the opposite of threatened though and lay still.  Except for bringing up a knee because his imagination was happily running all over body parts that just really didn't know a damn thing and it was helpful to have at least his leg listen to him.  Everything else? Nope, he was trying to play dead so he didn't embarrass himself again.  Stiles breathed and he stared and he stared at the lips just inches from his own... Derek touched his forehead to Stiles' _and wow_ that was somehow... Better and so much _worse_.

"Just for the record, this is a really good way to make me shut up," Stiles whispered.  "Anytime. Feel free."

And then it got amazingly better because he _felt_ the smile he could no longer see, the scruffy jaw brushing his smooth one.  Stiles wrapped his arms around Derek, and if anybody asked, he'd just refuse to let go.

 

  
 _~the end~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (...Except for there's another fic on the way and the first, eh, 50 pages are waiting on the beta now that she's done moving and has the internet back...)
> 
> The missing-scene-fic that follows this one is "Mistletoe and Mayhem" that shows how the crew spent their Christmas vacation. Found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1104219/chapters/2221400 
> 
> (...or just under my works page.)
> 
> And the last of The Parent Pack series is "Marked" and ao3 has a neat little button for that one. :)


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